Pouring their hearts out
UNO’s wine columnist Jess Easton heads to Hawke’s Bay to discover a resilient label which is perfectly balanced in more ways than one.
Words Jess Easton | Photos Jamie Troughton/Dscribe Media
Woven into grapes on the Saorsa wine label is a heart so vivid and intricate, it almost pulses.
Everything they do, they do with heart. And while their recent viticultural journeys have involved a degree of heartbreak, they've also been pretty heart-warming too.
When we drop in to see them at their Haumoana home, a steady drizzle occasionally erupts into rain outside. A traumatic Cyclone Gabrielle-plagued summer has given way to a miserable winter and Alex has been busy digging boxes and boxes of their delicious wine out of the silt.
Saorsa is Gaelic, with rough translations of freedom, salvation, redemption and liberty. The label lived up to its name; despite the vineyard being in the heart of the Esk Valley, it came through the cyclone relatively unscathed. Unfortunately they had stored most of their stock at neighbouring Linden Estate and much of it was left buried beneath metres of flood-strewn material, however.
But this is where the heart comes in. As soon as he could after the unprecedented devastation, Alex was back helping clear the vineyards, pulling the drowned stock of neighbours out from beneath the wires, doing his bit to help resurrect an ailing industry.
Wife Hana, meanwhile, was ignoring the floodwaters lapping at their own home and spending days and nights on duty with the local volunteer fire department.
With Haumoana's fire station under water, their home became the
designated base, and remained that way for months afterwards.
Selfless and community driven, it's worth remembering the couple have
three children of their own, while Hana – a qualified stainless steel
engineer – has a full-time job as operations manager in the waste industry.
The pair are perfect foils for each other; Hana is a 100km/h live-wire, bristling with energy and zest, while Alex is all earthy calm. And somehow, impossibly, they've infused all this personality into their wines.
The Saorsa Syrah 2021 is luxuriously earthy and smoky, with hints of rose, yet retaining a freshness and liveliness.
And their Viognier 2021 is decadent and silky, with bold notes of peach and apricot mingling with toasted spices.
Saorsa's grapes are handpicked and treated with the utmost care. There are no shortcuts during winemaking and the whole process is an affectionate nod to tradition, mixed with modern sensibilities and style.
This is the dream Alex and Hana have created – making wine they love with the ones they love – all of which is infused with heart.