OUR STORY

The shareholders of Waitaki Braids are truly passionate about the Waitaki Valley due to its terroir, self sufficiency, natural beauty, and largely undiscovered outdoor pursuits – it is an area we call “the Jewel”.

The majestic Waitaki River evolves from New Zealand’s highest mountain peak, Aoraki Mt Cook. The river’s pure waters flow from glaciers on its course following the 45th latitude through North Otago to the coast. The river valley has unique areas of limestone, ancient river gravels, and north facing slopes. These factors, combined with the valley’s extended growing season, create an environment similar to Burgundy, enabling the production of world class wines.

Waitaki Braids sole focus is the Waitaki Valley as a single region, single vineyard producer. The Waitaki Braids’ vineyard was chosen following extensive analysis of data including heat, wind and soil within the valley, and Michelle Richardson is extremely excited to produce wines in our hallmark style showing elegance, complexity, and layers of flavors.

This style has been developed specifically to produce food wines in order to enhance the taste sensations for sharing our wine with food. For each of our wines, Peter Gordon provides a combination of food matches that accentuate our wines’ core values. These food matches typically include ingredients from the Waitaki Valley as the terroir that is producing exceptional wine is also responsible for producing the region’s exceptional produce.

Waitaki Braids has applied a fanatical approach to quality, from the decisions made in the vineyard, its winemaking techniques, through to the wine / food matches provided by Peter Gordon. Due to limited supply, Waitaki Braids wines will initially only be offered to Peter’s restaurants (Dine in Auckland - www.skycity.co.nz; The Providores in London - www.theprovidores.co.uk; and Public in New York - www.public-nyc.com, as well as direct from the Waitaki Braids web site.