Vintage: The growing season preceding the 2018 vintage was one out of the box, with the warmest December on record and a very warm and sunny January. This was followed up by the warmest February ever on record, needless to say this was a great start to the season for vintage 2018. It wasn’t all smooth sailing though and there were some potential challenges as we closed in on harvest, with some cyclonic activity in the Pacific that brought some significant rains to the region. But the great start to growing season over the summer meant that we had really good flavour development quite early. This crucial element, coupled with very careful canopy management meant that our vines produced ripe flavours and that we could pick pretty early. We had all our fruit off early and had some of the cleanest fruit we have ever seen with harvest all completed by the first week in April. The resultant wines display great fleshiness with purity of fruit, bright aromatics and ripe, juicy acidity.
Toru (which means “three” in Maori) is an aromatic blend we first created over 12 years ago and was the first of its kind in New Zealand. It is a delicious, co-fermented “field blend” of three varieties - Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Pinot Gris. We are passionate about these classic Alsatian varieties and we spent a great deal of time coming up with the right proportions in the blend. We were aiming for a wine that displayed the essence of all three varieties, whilst creating a distinctive and interesting wine in its own right. It has the aromatic spice and weight of Gewürztraminer, the structure and length of Riesling, and the great texture of Pinot Gris.
Winemaking: All fruit for this wine was hand-picked and then hand-sorted. All parcels were destemmed, lightly crushed and then pressed, some parcels had lengthier skin-contact time. The wine was all co-fermented. All parcels spent considerable time on lees after ferment for added texture & complexity. Co-fermentation is a key part of making Toru as it makes the three varieties much more integrated with each other. This wine has not been fined and is suitable for vegans and vegetarians and anyone else who loves authentic, hand-made wines.
Wine: This 2018 Toru is 75% Gewürztraminer, 16% Riesling and 9% Pinot Gris. It has an intriguing nose with notes of mango, fresh citrus, white florals and exotic spices. These lead into a multi-layered palate with flavours of mango, citrus, red apple and lychee with a lingering spiciness. The palate has excellent fruit concentration and weight with lovely creamy texture, plus a mineral edge which gives it great length of flavour. Alc 13.3%; pH 3.38; TA 5g/L; RS 7g/L.
- Anna Flowerday, TWR
Anna Flowerday hails from McLaren Vale and kicked off her career there amid a thoroughly talented pack of young winemakers in the mid-1990s. She worked for Hardys for seven years all up, culminating in an aromatically formative stint at Leasingham in Clare Valley. It was during her time at Hardys that she met and fell in love with Jason Flowerday, a third-generation viticulturalist from Marlborough. Eventually they struck out together and in 2003 bought Te Whare Ra, home to one of the oldest vineyards in Marlborough, originally planted in 1979. Together they manage the estate with a combination of organic and biodynamic practices and have cemented this region's reputation not only as an impeccable source of aromatic whites but also as a force to be reckoned with for both Pinot Noir and Syrah.