About
Our Why
Alexia is and always will be about the wine first.
We are a family business, us and our kids. We are self-funded, owner-operators making wines that excite us.
We focus on wines that we think are the future – both in terms of what people want to drink, and what will grow well in changing climate conditions.
Our cellar door is not grand, but it reflects who we are and how we want to share our wines. Our goal is a relaxed, welcoming environment for everyone, which is why we’ve been here every day serving our guests.
Alexia was Jane’s grandmother, but the name for us represents family matriarchy - women who drove our families forward and held us together through the big, beautiful, fragile messiness of life.
Jane Cooper
Winemaker, forklift driver, chief schemer
Got halfway through a law degree, stepped into a winery, breathed it in and immediately switched to chemistry before studying winemaking and viticulture at Lincoln University.
Started winemaking in Nelson for Seifried Estate before moving on to make wines for Te Mania, Richmond Plains and Kaimira Estate with vintages in Chile, Italy and Australia in between. Moved to Wairarapa in the early 2000s and spent 14 years as general manager and chief winemaker at Matahiwi Estate. Left in 2016, picked apples and pears, made Eau de vie, and decided that the next time she put everything into a business, it would be her own.
Runs the wine bar kitchen, Chair of Judges National Wine Awards of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Wife of Lesley, mum of Vita and Tom. Frequently outraged.
Lesley Reidy
Winery dogsbody/cellar rat, carrier of heavy things
Cancelled her enrolment in the Masters Religious Studies course at Trinity College in Dublin to return to New Zealand and Jane, study journalism and become a rural news hack.
Left journalism and has done a range of jobs since, but as no one finds anything as interesting as Jane being a winemaker has not yet had to explain to anyone what she actually does for work.
When not rescuing Jane from being crushed by barrels or lifting, carrying or cleaning something wine related - is usually sitting at the kitchen table (the office) earning external income to throw on the winery money bonfire.
In the gumboots full-time for vintage. Runs the wine bar front of house. Winery head gardener.
Wife of Jane, mama of Vita and Tom. Lover of salt and vinegar chips.
Building an urban winery
Jane was cruising around Greytown on her bike one day when she saw this place and slammed on the brakes. An overgrown industrial section with a massive derelict tin shed, wedged between a neat row of suburban houses.
We listed the shed on Trade Me for $1 with the proviso: whoever buys it has to move it. The shed was dismantled piece by piece to go and live many new lives. Native timber framing for a house, the corrugated iron skin for a film set, fences and art projects, reinforcing steel for a bridge. Then we built this tiny winery from the ground up.
During vintage, this space is transformed from a cellar door into a fully functioning winery. We do it all here. Grapes in one door, wine out the other. We are one of a tiny handful of NZ wineries that make, age and disgorge our Méthode Traditionnelle 100% by hand, in house.
Manuka Flats Vineyard
When we started our urban winery project we knew we only had money to build a winery or own a vineyard. We chose to build a winery, so we don’t own a vineyard. Instead, we have a long-term grower partnership with Julie Collins and Simon Dawson of Manuka Flats Vineyard, West Taratahi, on the western side of the valley between Carterton and Masterton.
Manuka Flats vineyard is low-wire, densely planted, and has naturally low yields of intensely flavoured grapes, as well as a small experimental block dedicated to varieties not widely grown in Wairarapa.
Jane has been making wine for 30 years now, but is continuously pushing to make better wines each year - taking what we’ve learnt, thinking about how to evolve the wines we make, and working in the vineyard to achieve that. Our approach has always been to keep it simple, let the vineyard speak, and take great care.
Great wine starts in the soil. Once we have fantastic grapes, the job of the winemaker is simple – try not to trip up on the way into the winery.
