Kelly Washington

While Kelly Washington sounds like she might be a Grammy-winning blues singer on the US East Coast, or a baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, he or she is not, in fact, a real person at all. The name is an amalgamation of those of Tamra Washington and her British husband Simon Kelly, who founded the New Zealand-based label in 2016. Tamra is the winemaker, and already boasted an enviable CV by the time they set up together, having started out at Seresin Estate in Marlborough, before making wine in Sicily, Puglia and Tunisia, and returning home to act as chief winemaker for sustainability giant Yealands. Now consultant winemaker at Seresin, where the Kelly Washington wines are made, for her own brand she works largely with independent growers on long-term contracts, crafting highly characterful wines from high-altitude sites, generally planted with old vines at high density. Crucially, she looks to sustainably farmed, organic and/or biodynamic growers, aiming to showcase the diversity of New Zealand’s sub-regions through a variety of maturation vessels. These range from concrete eggs and amphorae, all in a bid to enhance the elegance and texture of the fruit, which comes from Waiheke Island Syrah to Hawkes Bay Cabernet Franc – and plenty of spots in between.