Coleraine’s House: How Te Mata Made Hawke’s Bay Hum From a 19th-century hill station to New Zealand’s most collected red—Liber tells the whole Te Mata saga, vineyard by vineyard, vintage by vintage

1) “A family hill. Three parcels. A ridiculous idea for the 1890s.”

Te Mata begins with the Chambers family planting vines on the north-facing Havelock Hills in the 1890s—Cabernet, Chardonnay and Pinot tucked into three sunny pockets above the old homestead. In 1896 they formalized the winery, built a brick cellar, and started shipping serious wine from a place better known for sheep than claret. Early judges noticed: by the first decade of the 1900s, Te Mata was already winning medals and scale. Then, like so many pioneering estates, it drifted—ownership changes, quiet decades, and Hawke’s Bay moved on.

2) The reboot: Buck, Morris, and a blueprint

Enter John Buck and partner Michael Morris, who bought the property in 1974. Their plan wasn’t nostalgia; it was precision. Replant the hills with Bordeaux varieties and Chardonnay, modernize the cellar, and let the Havelock Hills do the talking. The 1980s brought new kit, underground barrel halls, and the kind of viticultural discipline New Zealand then only talked about at tastings. A generation later, John’s sons—Jonathan, Nick, and Tobias—are woven through the business, the way a family should be when the address is the brand.

3) The protected hills (and why your glass tastes like limestone)

Here’s the quiet revolution: those original slopes were later ring-fenced as the Te Mata Special Character Zone—New Zealand’s first legally protected vineyard landscape. Translation: the rows, exposures, and thin, limestone-laced soils that defined Te Mata’s voice would not be paved over or reshaped on a whim. Add the region’s warm days, cool nights, and ocean ventilation, and you get ripeness with line, not bluster.

4) The wine that moved the goalposts: Coleraine

First vintage: 1982. At the start it came off the single Coleraine vineyard opposite the winery; from 1989 onward it became a strict assemblage of the best plots in the Havelock Hills. The blend leans Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot and Cabernet Franc, but the signature isn’t variety—it’s architecture: blackcurrant and cedar, fine graphite tannin, and a long, limestone echo. In great years (’98, ’05, ’13, ’18, ’19), it’s less a bottle and more a measuring stick.

5) The supporting cast you should actually know

• Awatea — Coleraine’s younger sibling: a Bordeaux-blend tuned for earlier charm without losing the house posture. If Coleraine is the tux, Awatea is the sharp sports coat.
• Bullnose Syrah — Named after a vintage Morris “Bullnose” car; fruit from old, iron-rich soils. Think violet, dark plum, black pepper, and silk-on-rails tannin.
• Elston Chardonnay — From one of the country’s historic Chardonnay sites; gunflint, white peach, meal, and length.
• Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc — Barrel-fermented Sauvignon (usually with a lick of Semillon/Sauvignon Gris); hawser-rope texture, lime blossom, and sea-spray nerve.
• Estate range — Hawke’s Bay benchmarks for Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Syrah, Merlot/Cabernet and a juicy, bistro-ready Gamay Noir.

6) Vineyards beyond the hill

Te Mata is Havelock Hills at heart, but the team also cultivated the Woodthorpe site to the northeast (broad diurnal swing, immaculate fruit) and parcels in the Bridge Pa Triangle (warm, deep gravels for mid-palate plushness). The blend of sites isn’t about hiding character; it’s about editing texture—the same way a great orchestra balances strings and brass.

7) How they actually make the stuff (short, sharp, honest)

• Hand picks, parcel by parcel.
• Traditional warm, plunged ferments for the reds; stainless and barrel for the whites.
• Reds see French oak in sensible ratios: enough to frame, never to perfume.
• Whites like Elston and Cape Crest spend real time in barrel and on lees for shape, not show.

Result: wines that feel composed rather than composed-upon.

8) Milestones to sip like a mini-vertical

• 1896 — Winery founded on the Havelock Hills.
• 1974 — Buck & Morris era begins; modern Te Mata blueprint.
• 1982 — Coleraine is born.
• Late 1980s — Athfield’s architectural revamp; underground barrel halls.
• 1990s — Bullnose Syrah planted; Cape Crest and Elston become national references.
• 1996 — Havelock Hills named the Te Mata Special Character Zone (heritage protection).
• 2000s–today — Coleraine canonized; estate expands precision farming and quiet sustainability.

9) Liber’s crib sheet—how to deploy Te Mata

• Pour Awatea at 5–6 years with grilled lamb chops and rosemary.
• Cellar Coleraine 8–15 years for the long run; decant young vintages an hour to straighten the cedar and graphite.
• Bullnose loves venison, peppered and pan-seared.
• Elston is your roast-chicken and morels Chardonnay.
• Cape Crest with line-caught snapper, capers, and brown butter—thank me later.

10) Final swirl

Te Mata didn’t chase fame; it built an address and let the hills do the public relations. From the Chambers’ three scrappy parcels to the Buck family’s quiet obsession, the through-line is simple: site first, polish second, hype never. If you want to understand Hawke’s Bay in a single glass, start with Awatea. If you want to understand New Zealand at the highest register, open Coleraine and watch the room fall silent.