When Luke and Vanessa Reynolds walk through a block of cabernet franc at their vineyard Tūāpae, they walk on ancestral land. Tūāpae is on Waiheke Island, on the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Vanessa (Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Te Waiohua, Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Hine) and other Māori use their iwi (tribe) and hapū (sub-tribe) names to show pride in and connection with their ancestors. “My tūpuna (ancestors) have been connected to this specific area in Tāmaki (Auckland) since well before the great waka migrations,” Vanessa explains, referencing the mass migration in the 1300s when many Māori first began to inhabit the land after journeying from the Polynesian island of Hawaiki, guided by the navigator Kupe. Here, voyagers committed themselves to stewardship of the land.
Despite a rich spiritual relationship with the land for over 1,000 years, Māori have historically had little presence in one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest and most lucrative agricultural ventures: viticulture. Vines were first planted there in 1819 by missionary Samuel Marsden, and by 1840, when English officials and Māori chiefs met to sign the Treaty of Waitangi (a commitment to live peacefully and in equality for the development of Aotearoa New Zealand, together), European grapes had already firmly taken root on unceded Māori soil.
Through 200 years of winemaking, Aotearoa New Zealand has developed a strong global reputation and a demand for the country’s wine, from Central Otago’s berry-rich pinot noir to Marlborough’s uniquely grassy sauvignon blanc. In that time, the wine industry has been vastly dominated by people of European descent. Today, however, some of the most impactful wines from the region are made by a growing number of Māori winemakers, who are working to decolonize the industry by integrating Māori-influenced farming methods and ideologies. Many of these practices predate European biodynamic farming, which has largely been seen as the model for natural wine.
“Being a kaitiaki (guardian) for the whenua (land) and caring for the land must always come first,” explains Matua Murupaenga (Ngāti Kuri, Ngāti Kahu), one of the partners behind the natural wine label Tawhiti. Along with Imogen Weir (Ngāi Tahu), Murupaenga first began his journey into winemaking after meeting Amy Hopkinson-Styles, who runs the wine label Halcyon Days and offered them mentorship and training. With a name meaning “something in the distance,” Tawhiti offers a picture of what the future of Aotearoa New Zealand wine could look like.
As the duo see it, natural winemaking and biodynamic farming already operate in line with the Māori worldview, which is guided by the idea of kaitiakitanga: a charge of guardianship of land, sea and sky for future generations. At Tiki Wine & Vineyards in North Canterbury, Royce McKean (Ngāti Uenuku, Ngāti Ranginui) sources urban compost from households on tribal land as a way to both cut down on food waste in the community and also to enrich the soil. Further north, a stream runs through the Tūāpae vineyard to Te Marae o Tai, Vanessa Reynolds’ tribal ocean and a part of the Tīkapa Moana (Hauraki Gulf), a once-fertile body of water that is currently experiencing an urgent biodiversity crisis, in part due to pollution. Tūāpae, in response, enacts farming practices that ensure only organic waste runs into the water systems.
Another Māori principle, ki uta ki tai, follows the path of wai (water) as it falls from the sky, flows over the land and out to sea. For winemakers, it also embodies “the journey from soil to vine to wine and to glass,” explains McKean. “This also speaks to our tūrangawaewae (the place we stand), or, in a European framework, our terroir.”
Though tūrangawaewae and terroir are comparable ideas, the Māori concept is also “something that is completely unique to Aotearoa New Zealand,” says Haysley MacDonald (Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Rarua), who runs the te Pa winery in Marlborough’s Wairau Bar, where he traces his family ancestry back over 800 years. Hugged by two bodies of water, the land there is fertile and the moana (ocean) abundant with tāmure (snapper) and pāua (abalone), a plentiful stretch for the early tribes who lived here.
As MacDonald puts it, tūrangawaewae are places where one feels empowered, connected and at home. That idea is reflected in both the wines and the stewardship of the land. A member of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ), which is widely recognized as a world-leading sustainability program in the industry, MacDonald exceeds the current standards of inclusion with his Māori-influenced farming. To create a strong tūrangawaewae, he incorporates practices like spreading grape marc (returning the remains of the pressed grapes to the soil for their nutrients and antioxidants), planting inter-row cover crops (which support soil vitality and encourage beneficial insects) and grazing sheep in the winter (which creates and adds carbon- and potassium-rich matter back into the soil). With te Pa’s Reserve Collection wines, made with grapes from a single vineyard, MacDonald showcases the minerality of the Awatere region, strongly present from the incredibly cared-for soils.
“‘I didn’t grow up connected to my Māori culture,’ says Jannine Rickards of Huntress Wines. ‘Always with the suppression of language, the culture and connection becomes impacted.’”
Beyond farming, Māori winemakers are also conscious of the language and ideas used to promote their wines. For example, while the term “estate wine” is used to describe those made from grapes grown in the label’s own vineyard, Vanessa Reynolds feels it’s important to use language that reflects Māori worldviews, eschewing the naming convention.“It just didn’t feel like the colonized sense of a boundary fit us or our kaupapa (guiding principles),” she says.
The act of choosing your words has never held more weight than it does today in Aotearoa New Zealand. The country has experienced a renaissance of te reo Māori, the original language of the land, which grew during the pandemic as isolation forced the country to look even further inward. From 2018 to 2021, the number of residents who could speak some basic te reo words rose from 24 percent to 30 percent. In 2024, te reo shows up in national news broadcasts (interspersed with English) and on road signs across the country; it’s printed in more books than ever. Still, not everyone shares the sentiment that the language, which holds spiritual significance for Māori and was originally a spoken, but not written, language, is on the rise. Resistance from some white New Zealanders persists. Older generations of Māori, who were beaten for speaking te reo in school, still remember the cruelty.
For some, however, using te reo on Māori wine labels is an act of reclamation. Despite being underrepresented in Aotearoa New Zealand’s wine history, the language and Māori symbols have been used in branding and marketing of the country’s wines made by Pākehā (New Zealanders of non-Māori descent). Without a Māori understanding of the language, certain concepts that are tapu (sacred and forbidden) might be misrepresented, especially when it comes to alcohol.
For the Reynoldses, “it was really important to us to take our name through the trademarking process and have it put up before the Māori Advisory Committee for approval,” Luke says. The group is part of the New Zealand intellectual property office that helps determine if something may be found offensive to Māori. McKean adds that the use of te reo and Māori symbols by Pākehā should benefit actual Māori people, through funding or raising awareness, “to help attract and educate Māori in the wine industry.”
Growing up, Jannine Rickards of Huntress Wines learned to register a certain kind of wondering look from others at her features and colors, as if she were a puzzle prompting the need for a clue. Rickards pieced together her Māori heritage from quieted conversation and banter between her parents. “I didn’t grow up connected to my Māori culture… I didn’t feel Māori,” she says. “New Zealand went through a period like most colonized countries where the language and culture was suppressed, and from the early 1900s to the 1970s Māori language was discouraged. Always with the suppression of language, the culture and connection becomes impacted.”
Learning about tikanga (traditional knowledge and protocols) in her adulthood gave Rickards an insight into Māori culture and a way of thinking about herself, and the environment, that she could easily connect to. At Huntress, that translates to minimal intervention and organic farming methods. The wines encapsulate over 20 years of Rickards’ learning and experiences, both as a winemaker and as a person undergoing the long and slow journey to discover, and reclaim, their identity.
Though Rickards first followed a traditionally European path to winemaking, she has slowly, over time, matched her winemaking style, ethos and approach with her Māori heritage. This has changed her wines, but also drew her closer to herself—and her ancestors. “With the revitalisation of Māori culture it is very fulfilling and tika (right), and I now ‘feel’ Māori,” she says. “Now I know my tīpuna (ancestors) are within me and support me in my journey.”
