MANA – a natural wine coalition from New Zealand’s Marlborough region

natural wine new zealand

MANA – a natural wine coalition from New Zealand’s Marlborough region

Very interesting development in New Zealand’s Marlborough region. I’s a coalition of Marlborough wine growers, called MANA, for Marlborough Natural Winegrowers. The five producers involved are Fromm, Herzog, Huia, Seresin and Te Whare Ra.

I like their approach, and like their wines. Here’s what they say about the venture:

‘Natural Winegrowing’ isn’t a prescriptively defined term and the group is comfortable with that. While each company’s approach and practices are different, they share a core belief in traditional, natural, artisanal winemaking – growing grapes and making wines without using chemicals, making yield, harvest, winemaking and business decisions with quality foremost in mind and creating truly expressive and unique wines. All winegrowing involves human intervention, but the question is how much. Natural winegrowing suggests “less is more” – the less the soil, grapes and wines are artificially manipulated, the more the wines can express where they come from.

Pictured (from left): Willie Hoare (Fromm), Jason Flowerday (TWR), Hätsch Kalberer (Fromm), Anna Flowerday (TWR), Claire Allan (Huia), Mike Allan (Huia), Therese Herzog (Herzog), Hans Herzog (Herzog) and MJ Loza (Seresin)

3 Comments on MANA – a natural wine coalition from New Zealand’s Marlborough regionTagged ,
wine journalist and flavour obsessive

3 thoughts on “MANA – a natural wine coalition from New Zealand’s Marlborough region

  1. Visited TWR when I was over there, small and easily overlooked but awesome wines – their “Toru” a 3 grape blend was outstanding.

  2. I met Anna and tasted a couple of the TWR wines on my recent visit to Marlborough – really impressed.

    I think there’s a lot of interesting wine being made in this region – often it’s overlooked because of the importance of commercial Sauvignon here

  3. I have been lucky enough to have visited all these wineries, have met some of those in the photograph and even have some bottles at home. What impressed me as much as their excellent wines was their enthusiasm, commitment and talent. I particularly liked Huia and especially TWR where my wife and I had a great tasting with Anna. I hope belonging to this group can give them more exposure in the UK, especially TWR, as I found only one supplier of one of their wines on Winesearcher. Good though the “big boys” may be, these small producers deserve support – but that’s true of any wine area isn’t it?

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