Māori women launch Matiti, an organic winemaking first

Dr Jessica Hutchings (Ngāi Tuhoe, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Huirapa and Gujurati) is part of the collective behind Matiti.

Three years in the making, Aotearoa’s first organic wine by an all-female Māori collective launches this week. The French may have terroir, but this sparkling riesling was crafted under hua parakore – the Māori organic verification system – and made with the help of sound technology to ‘listen’ to the vines. It’s a story as groundbreaking as the wine itself.

Five days before Dr Jessica Hutchings was due to host a world first in winemaking, her Kaitoke farmhouse burned down.

The planned tasting of Matiti – the first Māori organic wine to be made in Aotearoa by a Māori women’s winemaking collective – was almost certainly on hold.

“But these amazing women still had their tickets booked. They just turned up,” says Hutchings.

“We put up a tent, salvaged what we could. We cracked the wine in our gumboots, with smoky gloves on our hands, and we drank it out of mismatched plastic glasses because there was nothing left in the house to serve it on.”

Matiti officially launches this Saturday. It is sparkling wine with an origin story like no other.

When its riesling vines were in flower, its makers met to “listen” to the leaves and soil – a process led by kaupapa Māori researcher and member of the six-strong Matiti collective, Mariana Te Rangi (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngai Tamaterangi, Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Toa Rangatira).

“She brought this beautiful tool, a recording device, that we plugged into the soil at Grava vineyard [Martinborough] to hear the sound of the soil, and then clipped on to the leaves to be able to hear their sound,” says Hutchings (Ngāi Tuhoe, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Huirapa and Gujurati).

“It’s like an app – you say ‘oh, can I have natural wind instruments’ . . . and then the vascular sound comes out through that portal.”

It was the first time the listening technology, previously used in research into the fungal disease, myrtle rust, had been deployed in a New Zealand vineyard. Hutchings says the healthier the vine, the happier it sounded.

“A little bit bubbly – I’d say sparkly – almost reflecting the wine. There were a couple of vines that weren’t in great health and there was a real difference. The mauri and the energy was low . . . a little bit duller, a bit slower. Not so peppy.”

Hutchings, a researcher with a background in environmental science and indigenous studies, and her partner Jo Smith (Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe and Kāi Tahu) are founding members of the Papawhakaritorito Trust.

Its kaupapa centres on elevating indigenous seed, soil and food sovereignty, and their Kaitoke farm was just the third in the country to become hua parakore certified, under the Māori organic verification system.

The project started three years ago. Following a presentation at an organics conference, Hutchings fell into conversation with two winemakers - Marlborough-based Richelle Tyney (Ngāti Tama, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Maniapoto) and Jannine Rickards (Ngāi te Rangi, Ngāti Hauā, Ngāpuhi and Te Roroa), founder of Wairarapa-based Huntress Wines.

“And we just talked about the use of Māori words – kupu – and Māori storytelling by non-indigenous winemakers in NZ to reach for that provenance story ... without actually having Māori in their winemaking teams, without having a commitment necessarily to te reo Māori or without, in some cases, even having a relationship with mana whenua.

“In some ways, it’s a misrepresentation. As a speaker of te reo Māori, I look at that wine and I think ‘oh, it’s got a Māori name, it must have a Māori story, it must have Māori winemakers’ – and often they don’t.

Hutchings says hua parakore is a pathway to decolonising food futures in Aotearoa.

“When I met these two winemakers and they heard about hua parakore for the first time through my talk, they were like, ‘how can we make a hua parakore wine?’.

“It just started from there ... all of a sudden we’re in the flow of the mauri, or energy, we’re in the flow of the atua pathways, the pathways of our deity - and then, before you know it, we’re sipping this beautiful, bubbly, celebratory wine. Crazy, eh?”

The sixth member of the collective, Timmy Smith (Whakatōhea, Te Ūpokorehe and Ngāti Porou) is an organic tea blender, with experience in the beverage industry.

The collective sourced grapes from BioGro New Zealand certified Grava vineyard, located south of Martinborough, on silty loam soils formed by the Ruamahanga awa.

“We have korowai’ed - put a cloak around the wine - using our hura parakore verification and our integrity as a Māori organic grower, to provide that assurance and that verification that the wine is hura parakore,” says Hutchings.

She describes hua parakore as a “pathway to decolonising our food futures in Aotearoa and restoring collective indigenous foodways”.

Matiti is the first Māori organic wine to be made in Aotearoa by a Māori women’s winemaking collective.

And while the viticulture industry might traditionally use the term “terroir” to refer to the influence of the natural environment (including climate, soil and topography) on a wine, Hutchings says “we would talk about that in te ao Māori as the energies of Hineahuone, our soil deity”.

“As a wāhine Māori collective, we worked differently with every stage - from the vine to the wine. We listened to the unique rhythms of Papatūanuku and Hineahuone.

“We did that through karakia, we did that through wānanga, we did that through mindfulness. So we really brought tikanga Māori, in all of its diverse aspects, to our process and our intention of making the wine.”

In te reo Māori, Matiti denotes summer, a seven-phase season when the art of winemaking occurs.

Hutchings says finally tasting the wine was a surreal experience.

“It is important, because we have our own kaupapa Māori stories of terroir in Aotearoa, told through the collective voices of Māori women - as opposed to the individual Pākehā winemaker from a corporate vineyard that is owned by overseas interests.”

And: “It’s about collectivity. As our food systems crumble, as commodity food prices increase, no one person is going to come and save the system. Matiti is all about collaboration . . . mahi tahi, working together, and when we do that we can achieve so much more.”

The winemaking process was led by The Huntress’s Jannine Rickards and resulted in 1277 bottles of the Pétillant naturel riesling.

Jannine Rickards, founder of Huntress Wines, worked with five other women to create Matiti, a sparkling organic wine.

Rickards says while a pet nat is normally cloudy, the group decided to disgorge the bottles (remove its yeast lees) to enhance its purity.

“There was a lot of discussion about that,” says Rickards. “And it was good to be open to other perspectives instead of being the way, I guess, the Pākehā world is, where you get on and do it and your way is the right way.

“It’s been a lot of learning for me. I didn’t grow up very connected to my Māori whakapapa and so I’ve been loving that connection, and working with these women who are just phenomenal with their values and their drive to make change in a positive way.”

Matiti will be available online via Huntress Wines from Saturday. Auckland’s By The Bottle will also stock it.

“People are really interested when I start talking about it,” says Rickards. “They kind of look at me cross-eyed and go ‘who, what . . .?’ It’s going to hopefully spark some curiosity.”