Outstanding results in latest Wine Advocate reviews
Our team is celebrating a fantastic run of new reviews in one of the world's most influential wine publications, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate.
The publication is renowned for its trusted, scrupulous wine reviews and thoughtful tasting notes. We were delighted to host wine critic Erin Larkin at our home vineyard in the Lower Wairau Valley earlier this year, where our chief winemaker Sam Bennett, with owner and founder Haysley MacDonald, took her through our range of te Pā and te Pā Reserve Collection wines.
We invite you to have a read of the stunning scores and tasting notes below, and encourage interested readers to get in touch to find local stockist information:
te Pā 2024 Reserve Collection Hillside Sauvignon Blanc (95 Points)
The 2024 The Reserve Collection Hillside Sauvignon Blanc hails from the widely loved 2024 season. “The perfect vintage," proclaim many. It was warm, dry and low yielding, with little to no disease pressure. The minerality of the site, when combined with the amplitude of the season, works so nicely; it gives chew and weight in the mouth, with layers of exotic spice, with fennel and thyme, a hint of star anise, cut pear, lemon oil and green apple and even dried coriander. This super looks so good.
te Pā 2023 Reserve Collection Hillside Sauvignon Blanc (95 Points)
The 2023 The Reserve Collection Hillside Sauvignon Blanc is mineral and tightly coiled, textural and chalky. The wine has magnificent phenolic presence, which is perhaps why I like it so much. This has excellent stride and stretch through the palate. The growing environment exposes the grapes to a harsh southerly wind, which thickens the skins and increases the phenolic content. It's superb.
te Pā 2024 Reserve Collection Seaside Sauvignon Blanc (95 Points)
The 2024 The Reserve Collection Seaside Sauvignon Blanc is mineral and salty. I love the tension here! It's grassy and green and yet floral, with all the fruit—cut pear, lime, lemon and apple—laced together by briny acidity. This gorgeous wine is highly recommended. The ocean plays such a large role in the personality of this wine.
te Pā 2023 Reserve Collection Seaside Sauvignon Blanc (93 Points)
The 2023 The Reserve Collection Seaside Sauvignon Blanc is sourced from the block in front, close to the ocean in Marlborough. The difference between the wines in this reserve range is due to site expression. Aromatically, the wine leads with the same characters that it exudes on the palate: coriander and cut grass, white pepper, layers of citrus fruit and brine—loads of crunchy, briny acidity. It's lovely. The wine has handpicked fruit and was whole-bunch pressed, with stainless ferments, slow winemaking and time on the lees post ferment prior to sulfuring. This vintage sees no oak, and it doesn’t need it for expression or texture. This is very good indeed and comes highly recommended.
te Pā 2023 Westhaven Pinot Noir (94+ Points)
The 2023 Westhaven Pinot Noir is sourced from the Westhaven vineyard, a little north-facing site that is a valley within the Awatere Valley, if you will. I had driven past this intriguing site twice in the last couple of days while in Marlborough and wondered what was beyond the hills—here, we taste it through the glass. On the nose are notes of cherry and star anise, freshly grated nutmeg, a suggestion of autumn leaf and exotic spice. This is elegant and fragrant, a quality that translates onto the palate with ease.
The tannins that shape the fruit are fine and talc-like. The clay soils are defined by loess, and the site is cool, despite the north-facing aspect. The wine has a small amount of whole-bunch fruit in the ferments, and this only serves to highlight the capacious quality of the mid-palate. This is a wonderful wine, from a beautiful part of the world.
te Pā 2022 Reserve Collection Auntsfield Chardonnay (93 Points)
The 2022 The Reserve Collection Auntsfield Chardonnay comprises a selection of the best barrels. It was left in oak a little longer and bottled unfiltered and unfined. The wine leads aromatically with fresh-picked curry leaf white peach, saffron, bay leaf and preserved lemon. The pH is low, in the approximation of 3.1, and it delivers incredible freshness in the wine. This is a beautiful wine. The impact of time on lees through the finish is evident, but the precision of the front palate is admirable. It's floral and spicy, with attractive phenolic width and density. This is good. It's a brilliant vineyard site expressed with eloquence here.
te Pā 2024 Sauvignon Blanc (92 Points)
This 2024 Sauvignon Blanc is a blend of the Hillside and Beachside vineyards, and the wine has both minerality and salinity; it is crunchy and full of fruit flavor, kept on the rails by rocks, shells, phenolics and acid. It's excellent. The wine speaks of the places from whence it came.
te Pā 2023 Chardonnay (90 Points)
The 2023 Chardonnay is from the Auntsfield vineyard site and was just about to be released to the market when I tasted it in March 2025. On the nose, the wine leads with white peach, brine, vanilla wafer, clove, nutmeg and a hint of cinnamon. The wine is streamlined and glossy, a little tropical and with plenty of acid and phenolic drive. It was made with handpicked Clone 15 grapes from the flat part of the vineyard and whole-bunch pressed direct to barrel with full solid ferment. The first Chardonnay was in 2015.
te Pā 2023 Pinot Noir (90 Points)
The 2023 Pinot Noir is a blend of three vineyard sites: Westhaven, Auntsfield and a site on Wrekin Road in Brancott (Southern Valleys). The wine has a mid-weight mid-palate and is plump and balanced, with loads of powdery tannin that shape the experience, making for a lovely, fresh, detailed wine. This is gorgeous.
