Te Wā

Te Wā is Maori, which is an unusual thing to find on a Moldovan label. Literally it means "the time"; the winery renders it as "time will tell".

By the winery's own account, Te Wā was started by two women who went from the Napa Valley to New Zealand in search of wine experiences, and then decided to make wine in Moldova. Wine Anorak tells it a little differently, crediting Vadim Mihailov, who had worked two seasons in New Zealand.

The winery is in Vorniceni, in the Codru. Te Wā works with small grape growers and says it follows the vineyards from pruning to harvest. Everything is picked by hand into 10 kg crates. Some of the fruit comes from further south, from the Purcari area of Ștefan Vodă.

In the cellar the word is low intervention. The winery spells out what that means for it: very little commercial yeast, no fining or filtering, and few or no additives.

The labels are photographs by the designer and photographer Mihai Stamati, chosen, the winery says, to show rustic Moldova and its tie to the land.