A toast to Canterbury

Sheltered from cooling coastal breezes by a low range of hills, the Waipara Valley enjoys hot, dry ripening conditions allowing winemakers, and not the weather, to dictate when the grapes should be picked. The region’s history is short, with the first vines planted in 1978, defying warnings that they would perish from drought or frost. The vines thrived and the Waipara region has since earned a reputation for making supremely elegant wines with great potential to mature. While it accounts for less than three percent of New Zealand’s grapes, it produces some of the country’s finest cool-climate wines including riesling, pinot noir and gewürztraminer. The future of this wine region looks bright, just like the long summer days it is blessed with.

In general terms, wines made from grapes grown on the Waipara plains are lighter and suppler than those from the