As the French have the word ‘terroir’ to refer to a sense of place, so the people of New Zealand have ‘tūrangawaewae’, meaning ‘our place in the world’. It’s this sense of place that Steve Smith MW and Brian Sheth seek to create with the Smith & Sheth range of wines – wines that sing of the land where they are created.
The pair met over a glass of chardonnay in 2014 and discovered they shared a dream to create excellent wines and equally excellent experiences to share with other people. Smith, one of New Zealand’s few qualified Masters of Wine, teamed up with Sheth, an American investor with a great passion for New Zealand to seek out the exceptional, developing relationships with the country’s best vineyards, hand selecting grapes and crafting top-quality wines.
Their search for a suitable tūrangawaewae led them to Hawke’s Bay, where rich alluvial plains are home to fertile soils that create some of the world’s greatest wines. This place of abundance is the one that inspires them to create wines full of character and flavour.
