SUSTAINABILITY
GUARDIANS OF OUR LANDS FOR GENERATIONS TO COME
SUSTAINABILITY AT TOI TOI
At Toi Toi, we recognise that when the natural environment flourishes, so do our wines. Because, when you work as closely with nature as we do, you grow to respect and admire all it provides.
Kaitiakitanga and guardianship
We are privileged to carry the responsibility of ‘kaitiakitanga’ – guardianship or protection of our lands in te reo Māori. Marlborough is a naturally extraordinary place that produces naturally extraordinary wine. We work hard to make sure that the environment is better for us being here.
For us, sustainability means a holistic approach, reaching from the soil to the sky. It touches all our activities in vineyards, transportation, packaging, and business practices.
Every day, we are grateful to see, hear and taste the benefits of working in partnership with our environment. We hope you’ll enjoy it with us too.
HELPING CONSERVATION TAKE FLIGHT
We’re fortunate to be surrounded by birdsong daily and to see increasing numbers of tui, pipit and falcons wing their way through the Marlborough region. At Toi Toi, we’re proud to have supported many initiatives to help native birdlife thrive across New Zealand.
We’ve raised thousands to support Forest & Bird in its protection efforts, and today we sponsor Birds NZ. Our funding supports its Atlas trips to collect vital data on birds in remote regions of the country.
BUILDING STRONGER CREATIVE COMMUNITIES
Toi Toi’s commitment to sustainability goes beyond our natural environment. Nurturing local communities helps us all build a better future to share.
We found kindred spirits — and a great pairing at Depot – Te Whare Toi. We’re delighted to support Depot as their wine partner. Depot’s goal is to ensure that art and creativity make a vital contribution to our culture, our communities and our economy.
The Depot team is keenly aware of the interconnectedness and strength it takes to build a thriving creative sector. It needs the same kaitiakitanga’ guardianship as our own environment – the breathtakingly picturesque Marlborough.
‘Toi’ means art in te reo Māori and we like this connection because at Toi Toi Wines, we’re passionate about the art of winemaking.
Depot is building a stronger creative future for Aotearoa, its creatives and its communities, and we’re pleased to play a part.
SUSTAINABLE WINEGROWING
Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand
We’re proud to be part of the Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ) certification programme.
The SWNZ programme focuses on soil, water, pest, disease, waste, people and climate change. SWNZ certification means an audit of and sharing our data on all our practices every year. This includes our soil reports, spray diaries, fertilisers and organic nutrients, our power consumption and water used. We measure our carbon footprint.
We’re out in the environment every day, so we make our decisions based on what we see in the sky and in the vines. This results in a more nuanced approach that flows through to the flavours we achieve.
We’ve learnt to ‘listen’ to nature to inform what we do – from our grape growing and winemaking process to the recycling of our glass bottle packaging over and over again.
Partnering with nature
Our predominant fertiliser is sea kelp. It’s nutrient-rich and improves the strength and quality of the vines.
Another way we collaborate with nature is by creating biodiversity. We’ve planted native Toi Toi’s around our vineyard ponds, creating nesting areas for birdlife and homes for insects. We mulch all our vineyard prunings and grape marc back into the soil to create incredible ‘bio regeneration’ – the microorganisms that play a revitalising role in the ecosystem and enrich the nutrient availability in our soils.
APPELLATION MARLBOROUGH WINE
Appellation Marlborough Wine
There’s no place in the world like Marlborough, and no wine in the world that tastes like ours, especially our Sauvignon Blanc. We believe that it is worth protecting.
Appellation Marlborough Wine was created to safeguard Marlborough wine for future generations. It also gives wine lovers confidence in provenance, authenticity, and integrity when they buy.
We are certified as Appellation Marlborough Wine (AWM) meaning all our Marlborough vineyards and winemaking are vetted by the AWM standards.
The requirements include
- Only using grapes grown by Marlborough vineyards certified by Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ)
- bottling our certified wines in New Zealand
- cropping our grapes below specified standards
- limiting vine density against soil type to ensure nature stays balanced.
Marlborough is an extraordinary place that produces naturally extraordinary wine. By collaborating with nature, we look forward to bringing out the best in our wines and our land for generations to come.
