TEHAUThe Donaldson Family traces its Kiwi roots back about 1000 years.  In keeping with this we have chosen to honour this special New Zealand wine with an ancestral name.

Although the weather was fine over the flowering period of the vines, there were frequent, blustery winds.  These impaired pollination and reduced the “set” so that there was a small crop.  The rest of the season, however, was excellent and we were able to harvest beautifully ripened grapes. 
 
After harvesting, the grapes without their stems were put into small fermenting vats, endeavouring to retain as many whole berries as possible.  For the next 4 or 5 days these were kept cool to help extract the softer and silkier tannins from the skins.  After this time the vats gradually warmed and fermentation started through the action of the grapes’ own indigenous yeasts.  During the period of this primary fermentation, the floating cap of skins was gently manually pushed down twice daily to keep it moist and healthy.  When fermentation had finished the grape remnants were kept in contact with the wine for a period of “post-fermentation maceration” in order to give the wine extra structure and depth.  The duration of this was determined by daily tasting.  Subsequently, the wine was drained off and put into oak barriques.  Over the years we have selected a few artisan Burgundian coopers whose barrels seem to especially suit our wines and we used exclusively these for this wine.

Natural secondary or “malo-lactic” fermentation occurred spontaneously in barrel when the weather warmed the following summer.  The individual batches from the various vats were kept separate and remained in barriques for a total of 18 months before various proportions were carefully blended to produce this wine.

The wine has a vibrant ruby sheen, behind which lie layers of dark ripe fruit characters.  The nose and flavours suggest black cherries, purple plums and blackberries.  They intermingle with savoury nuances of barbequed meats and cooked mushrooms.  Underpinning these is an elusive, but typical, Waipara spiciness, which flows through the muscular palate of ripe tannins and produces a lingering after-taste of dark chocolate and cracked black pepper.

Wine is a natural health food