Whenua Ora in practice with Anthony Walsh

Our Whenua Ora programme guides everything we do commercially to restore the mauri, the life force, of our land, water, and people, for generations to come.

Putting this into practice is the responsibility of our Vineyard Manager, Anthony Walsh (Ngā Rauru Kītahi, Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Rangi, Te Āti Haunui a Pāpārangi, and Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga). 

He looks after 150ha of vineyards across the Awatere Valley. The moment Anthony walks through our 71 hectares of Whenua Ora vineyards, his mindset switches from economic-driven to soil-driven.

For Anthony, Whenua Ora is a radical act of indigenous viticulture in Aotearoa New Zealand, and a daily practice in reconnecting with his own whakapapa, his Māori ancestry.

We caught up with Anthony to learn what Whenua Ora looks like compared to recognised viticulture methods, and in the everyday decisions made out in the vineyard.

Explaining Whenua Ora in viticulture terms

Whenua Ora looks quite different from the more official viticulture methods seen in other vineyards.

Most winegrowers stick to one of three dominant methods:

• Conventional viticulture, the traditional method, focuses on the vines and uses synthetic herbicides and pesticides to maximise yields and cost-efficiency. 

• Organic viticulture, thought of as the more natural method, replaces synthetic inputs with a list of approved, natural products to grow grapes with minimal harm to the environment.

• Regenerative viticulture, the holistic method, evolves the rules-based thinking of organic to an outcome-based approach that actively builds soil health and biodiversity. 

Whenua Ora looks at each method and asks the one big question:

Which practices will help us be kaitiaki, guardians, of the land for future generations?

As a result, Whenua Ora involves a combination of conventional, organic, and regenerative viticulture practices. Neither method trumps the other.

Anthony describes it as a triangle framework that helps us balance sustainability, land restoration, and commercial success:

Whenua Ora isn’t an official viticulture standard – and for now, that’s the point. 

We want to be guided by our indigenous way of thinking and working. Decisions are made in response to tohu, signs, from our environment and through kōrero, conversations, with our people.

Anthony explains how Whenua Ora interacts with each side of the triangle:

Conventional methods in Whenua Ora

Roughly 90% of the world’s vineyards are farmed conventionally. Anthony explains it as “the simplest form of farming that focuses on the crop itself rather than the wider ecosystem.”

A typical pattern in conventional methods is regular use of synthetic inputs like fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides. As science catches up to indigenous knowledge, there’s growing awareness of the harms of high‑input monoculture to the soil, biodiversity, water pollution, climate, and our wellbeing.

But we still use conventional methods in most of our vineyards and within Whenua Ora. 

Why? Because, when used mindfully, synthetic inputs are a necessarily targeted solution.

For example, a Brown Beetle flight poses a huge risk to the harvest, but the organic remedies are often broader and slower‑acting, which makes them a higher‑risk choice when we’re under pressure.

It’s this tension between ecosystem and economics that Anthony has to balance every day:

"We don’t think synthetic fertilisers and herbicides are always bad. It’s about understanding why you’re using them, what the potential drawbacks are, and weighing up what’s at stake to go with this method over something more organic or regenerative."

 

Conventional methods deliver reliable yields for a large-scale wine business.

Though we’re introducing more regenerative methods with every vintage, conventional practices still have a place in our Whenua Ora framework.

Organic methods vs. Whenua Ora

Organic farming emerged in Europe in the early twentieth century, responding to industrialised monoculture with a more natural mindset and methods. 

Organic viticulture is a set of rules limiting what can and can’t be used when growing grapes. Synthetic inputs are replaced with more natural, organic-certified products.

We have 9ha of BioGro-certified organic growing at Whenua Awa, but we don’t include this in our wider Whenua Ora programme.

Why? Because, for now, we’re focused on slowly developing our way of doing things, independently from external certification and rules. 

There are also some tensions with organic methods and our Whenua Ora mindset:

“Organic remedies are softer, not 100% effective, and can target more species, including the beneficial ones. Organic methods allow you to put plastic weed matting down, which we don’t agree with. We’d rather do what we feel is the right thing than the certifiable thing.”

While organic winemaking focuses on producing a crop that’s free from synthetic pesticides and herbicides, it can leave out some structural and holistic thinking around biodiversity.

Regenerative methods in Whenua Ora

Though there’s a lot of crossover with organic methods, regenerative viticulture is a more radical movement that takes organic from ‘minimise harm’ to ‘restore the ecosystem’.

“Where organic gives control to a strict rulebook with approved resources, regenerative tries to give control back to nature with additional tools we can use to help it.”

Interrow crops at Whenua Awa attract pollinators and beneficial insects.

For us, this looks like:

• Interrow management to feed the ecosystems between the vines

• Limiting herbicides and insecticides to let beneficial populations recover

• Low cultivation to protect soil structure, fungal networks, and carbon

• Native restoration with plantings around the block to create habitat and shelter for indigenous flora and fauna

• Pest trapping to monitor and manage pressure directly rather than relying on heavy interventions

• Sheep grazing to naturally cycle nutrients throughout the vineyard

For us, regenerative methods best resemble kaitiakitanga: protecting water, building living soils, welcoming biodiversity, reducing synthetic inputs, and leaving each vineyard more resilient and abundant for future generations.

So why aren’t we fully regenerative yet?

Converting to regenerative is a gradual process requiring patience and careful experimentation to figure out what works for our vines and our tough growing conditions in the Awatere Valley. 

Implementing Whenua Ora is a major cultural change for our kaimahi, our workers: new processes, new rhythms, and a new way of thinking about the land. To transform everything too quickly would be overwhelming.

That’s why we’ve focused the transition mostly within our Whenua Awa vineyard, where we’ve slowly but confidently moved away from conventional practices to grow the grapes for our Single Vineyard varietals. 

This aligns with guidance from the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation, a global non-profit supporting vineyards with evidence-based resources and practical tools. Their approach is to start small, the ‘One Block Challenge’, and then scale gradually. 

As we're expanding regenerative practices throughout the vineyard, we're starting to think about which certifiers and accreditations best align with Whenua Ora and our 500-year plan.

How we’re putting Whenua Ora into practice

Anthony’s job, as he puts it, is coming up with the recipe for Whenua Ora.

“Whether it’s land conservation or baking puddings, it’s helpful to follow a recipe when learning something new. Once you’ve cracked the recipe, you can start modifying it to suit you. Certification isn’t the destination for us, but it’s helpful to have clear guidelines to follow.”

This is what’s been established so far:

Growing an interrow ecosystem

In a conventional vineyard, the space between the row of vines is often mown short. 

Species deemed as ‘weeds’ are removed, and the space is kept tidy to minimise competition, disease pressure, and create the groomed aesthetic we all recognise.

But in regenerative viticulture, the interrow is a vital part of the vineyard ecosystem.

“If you turned up to the vineyard in November, there’d be a range of ankle height to hip height interrow crops, whereas a neighbouring vineyard would look like a bowling lawn.”

Planting interrow crops has many practical and ecological benefits to the vineyard:

• Protect the soil from drying out, overheating, or washing away

• Feed soil biology by adding roots, organic matter, and plant diversity

• Hold moisture in the soil, especially during dry periods

• Cycle nutrients naturally, reducing reliance on external inputs

• Support beneficial insects by providing flowers, habitat, and food sources

• Build deeper and more varied root systems below ground

As part of Whenua Ora, we’ve established interrow crops throughout our vineyards, including species like plantain, chicory, allyssum, buckwheat, sulla, fescues, radishes, oats, lupins, beans, and many clovers.

Each plant has a role, sending roots deeper into the soil, flowering and supporting insects, breaking up compacted ground, and fixing nitrogen into the soil.

It hasn’t been without its learning curves, as Anthony explains:

“When we first started looking at interrow crops in 2019, it was pretty radical for a vineyard like ours. In 2021 we got confident and let it grow up to 1.8 metres, and while the soil life looked great, the grape grower in me panicked because humidity was high, which brings disease risk. Now we choose species that can set seed at hip height, and we mow higher so each species can complete its cycle.”

The challenge is knowing what to plant, when to mow or crimp, and not creating new problems for the vines.

Writing down tohu, signs, from the land

Regenerative farming builds a heightened awareness of the unique ecosystem you live in. If we tune in, we can start to notice the tohu, the signs, from nature that communicate exactly what’s happening on the land. 

Our Whenua Ora lens is a distinctly Māori perspective, drawing from traditional knowledge systems that were part of life pre-colonisation in Aotearoa.

Every iwi and hapū, tribe and subtribes, would have their own stories, songs, and proverbs, passed down generations and rooted in local wisdom about food systems, weather patterns, geological markers, and waterways.

Anthony and his team are building this awareness by collecting the environmental signals they notice every day and connecting them to what’s happening in the vineyard.

With a better understanding of what’s happening in the environment, they can respond to the needs of the ecosystem much earlier, preventing the need for heavy interventions at later stages.

Follow our Whenua Ora journey

With each harvest, Whenua Ora is evolving and answering “what does guardianship of the land look like?”  

It’s a complicated process, full of steep learning curves, and the feeling of taking two steps forward and one step back. 

But there are major wins, too. 

With each successful regenerative practice we establish in the vineyard, we're bringing a more indigenous and ecologically responsible approach to viticulture. 

“We’re playing the long game and want the soil to do the work for us. Compared to when we started, the soil health is looking amazing, and our native bee populations have gone berserk. Since reducing our insecticide use and increasing our interrow pollen species, we see beneficial insects in huge numbers prior to harvest."

The result is wine that is a pure expression of terroir and our tūrangawaewae, our standing place, in the Awatere Valley.

We’ll keep checking in with Anthony throughout the season as he continues to develop and implement Whenua Ora practices.