Te Whare Ra Single Vineyard Toru (field blend) 2021

TORU (which means “three” in Māori) is an aromatic blend we first created in 2006 and has now become one of our flagship wines. Toru 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

Aromatic, co-fermented field blend

Te Whare Ra has a very long history of producing outstanding aromatic whites and the Toru is our acknowledgement of that - a field blend of Gewurztraminer, Riesling and Pinot Gris 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, and co-fermentation is key to that result. It has the aromatic spice and weight of Gewürztraminer, the line and length of Riesling, and the great texture of Pinot Gris. It is a great reflection of how well suited this vineyard is for aromatic whites, and we feel like it is a wine of place that pays homage to Te Whare Ra’s history over the last 40 years of winegrowing.

Over the spring of 2019 we experienced great conditions over flowering which led to moderate crops and a nice, even set which was great after the bad flowering we had in 2019. The summer that followed was warm, dry and very nice and even with no big heat spikes – similar to the 2016 growing season. We have described it as “ the Goldilocks vintage” = not too hot, not too cold, just right! We did not get the issues with extreme drought like we had in 2019, and so the more gentle summer conditions meant that we had the first fruit into the winery mid - March and harvest completed by the first week in April. The resultant wines have great depth of flavour and fleshiness with purity of fruit, bright aromatics and ripe, juicy acidity.

Organic viticulture Blended from home block

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. Co-fermentation is an integral 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.