Welcome to Te Whare Ra Wines  e-cellar door

We want to make wines with a "somewhere-ness rather than a same-ness". Our yields are kept very low and the home vineyard is managed with a combination of organic and biodynamic practices including the use of cover-crops, compost and grazing our cows in the vineyard in winter. Our vineyard here is hand-tended as much as possible as we feel that a person can treat each vine individually and coax the best from it -  rather than a machine which does the exact same thing to each vine.  It does mean more time and effort (and more $$) but we think it is more than worth it for the resultant quality of the wines. Our aim is to grow great quality fruit  - fruit which is balanced in all its components, and which then requires minimal winemaking intervention or adjustments once we get it in the winery. This means a cropping level which is strictly controlled and so we do selective crop thinning at a number of key times during the growing season. 

Our approach at Te Whare Ra is first and foremost to make great wines and to use a natural approach to the growing (and making) of those wines.  We actually feel very comfortable that natural winegrowing is not strictly defined. It is more a way of doing things than a pure definition. We think it means different things to different people and can cover a wide range of practices and techniques.  We make all our wines with minimal sulphites and the whole range is also suitable for vegans and vegetarians.  From our perspective the making of quality, naturally produced wines involves many occasions when intervention is required to varying degrees.

We are a member of Organic Winegrowers New Zealand and also a founding member of MANA Winegrowers (a collective of family owned, organic producers in Marlborough).