QUARTER ACRE

Te Awanga, with its sea views and breezes, coastal loams and salty air, is the main line for us. The vineyards, the people, the winemaking, the tinkering, the thinking, the planning and dreaming – these moving parts all eventually arrive at the one point – Te Awanga. This is where it all started. Bottles labelled on the kitchen table, the modest beginning to the grand master plan.With a light touch, moderate not meddlesome, Quarter Acre wines are guided rather than driven, and largely left to do their own thing with natural ferments, no additives, long lees aging and minimal or no filtration.The result is a collection of single vineyard wines that taste like they could only have been grown and made right here … in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.It’s a very Kiwi thing.

Rod McDonald

When I was a kid, I thought I’d be a farmer. All my family thought I’d be a farmer. When we sold our farm, I spent every school holiday I could on a farm. I loved getting up early, I loved the stock, the dark mornings and the sunrises. I loved the ritual and routine of farming life - early starts, back home for long breakfasts, feeding the dogs, feeding out hay from the back of a tractor…My first memory of wine being on the radar was at my grandparents’ place, Christmas dinner, when I was ten. Papa always fancied a drink, his martinis and G&Ts were the stuff of legend. He also loved entertaining, big dinners, a bottle or two of special wine on the table. There was always a story that went with it. Great wine is all about that. So, in 1993 I arrived in Hawke’s Bay with a love for making wine and everything I owned packed into the boot of a small car. I spent nine years as winemaker at Vidal Estate in Hawke's Bay and was awarded New Zealand Winemaker of the year in 2006. I left later that year with a few ideas about what Hawke's Bay wines could be like, where the great ones would come from, and started Rod McDonald Wines.