Waipara West is the trading and brand name of Tutton Sienko Hill, a family partnership of Paul Tutton, Olga Sienko, Vic Tutton and Lindsay Hill. They purchased Waipara West in 1989 knowing that, although it was an unsuccessful rabbit infested, sheep farm, it had a combination of factors suitable for the production of quality grapes. Being further inland and higher than existing Waipara vineyards, it was hotter and less frost prone due to natural air movement caused by the river and the sloping terraces. Only then did they realise that the farm had been previously owned by their family some hundred years before. Waipara West, a geographically correct name but actually called after our weather station, is situated on sunny stony north facing terraces along the Waipara River some seven miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and nestling in the foothills of the Southern Alps.
