Kelly Washington Waiheke Island Syrah 2021

The wife-husband team of Kelly Washington are quickly establishing a very fine reputation for a portfolio of wines from New Zealand, all made with sustainability at the forefront of their thinking. Tamra Kelly-Washington is the winemaker with a top degree from the highly regarded Lincoln University and bags of experience in Napa, Hunter Valley and Margaret River, Sicily, Puglia and even Tunisia. She returned home to work at the renowned Yealands and Seresin estates and now, in addition to consulting at Seresin, her own project. This she has done alongside husband Simon Kelly, a transplanted Brit with a background in risk management, IT and finance for large corporations. He gave that up to travel and ‘immerse himself in wine’. He has worked many a vintage, worked in fine wine sales, as a sommelier, as a wine importer, and achieved the WSET Diploma.

Though they have made their home on Waiheke Island, near Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand, they source their fruit from respected growers in Hawke’s Bay to the east of North Island, and on the South Island, in Marlborough and Central Otago, all of whom work sustainably and often organically and biodynamically. Sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, cabernet franc, chardonnay, semillon and pinot blanc are all worked with in her top-line range, hand-harvested from vineyards where the vines are old and planted to a high density. Each is treated uniquely and as sympathetically as possible, aiming to express the source of the fruit. In the case of the pinot noir this means not filtering or fining. This is definitely a project that is worth watching.