The wines produced by Waimea Estates are made from the best vineyard sites of our own vineyards and those of selected growers. Good wine is made in the vineyard and that is why a primary focus at Waimea Estates is growing top quality grapes and ensuring they reach the winery in good condition. Yields are controlled and canopy management during the ripening season is intensive. Leaf-plucking may take time and crop-thinning is psychologically hard to do, but we think the effort is worth it! And having patience at harvest rewards us with physiologically ripe and highly concentrated fruit.

In the winery the aim is to make the wines expressive of the varieties they are made from and for them to reflect the 'terroir' of the Nelson region. We use gentle processing and anaerobic techniques to create 'fruit-driven' wines. While we want the wines to be varietal, we also want to enhance their complexity by adding subtle winemaking nuances as appropriate, but always without detracting from the primacy of the fruit. The three words winemaker Michael Brown sums up his aims in his wines are 'concentration, texture, balance'.