"£100 & a butt of sack yearly"

Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate

Te Mata Estate is New Zealand's oldest winery, dating from the early 1890's. It is a New Zealand family owned winery - a true estate, specialising in grape growing and winemaking from its ten Hawke's Bay vineyards. Acknowledged as one of the premier wineries in New Zealand, Te Mata's completely handmade wines are renowned as the country's finest. Under the direction of John Buck, Te Mata Estate has, over nearly thirty years, produced a stunning array of red and white wines including such famous labels as Coleraine and Awatea Cabernet/Merlots, Bullnose Syrah, Elston Chardonnay and Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc. Not content to rest on its laurels, Te Mata has also developed a unique single vineyard from which it produces its Woodthorpe and Rymer's Change wines.
In its centenary year of 1997, Te Mata Estate established the New Zealand Poet Laureate award to recognise outstanding contributions to New Zealand poetry. Each winning poet is appointed for a two-year tenure and receives from Te Mata Estate, a grant of both money and wine, together with an individual tokotoko (a ceremonial carved walking stick) symbolising their achievement and status. At the end of the term Te Mata Estate combines with Random House to produce a volume of the laureate's work.

To date the Te Mata New Zealand Poet Laureate's and their published laureate works are: Bill Manhire, What to call your child (1999), Hone Tuwhare, Piggy-back Moon (2001), Elizabeth Smither, Red Shoes (2003), and Brian Turner, Footfall (2005). The Poet Laureate is Jenny Bornholdt of Wellington.

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Keith Stewart is one of New Zealand's leading wine writers. This celebratory volume was produced for Te Mata's centenary in 1997.

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'Keith Stewart, Te Mata: the First 100 Years. Auckland: Godwit, 1997.

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Seventy-five copies of Air Pocket, a collaborative work between Pip Culvert, Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O'Brien, were printed by Brendan O'Brien at Fernbank Studio, Hataitai, Wellington. 'I emptied my pockets' surfaces in a longer poem in Bornholdt's Summer book. She is the fifth Te Mata Poet Laureate. This is copy no.36.

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Pip Culvert, [and] Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O'Brien, Air Pocket. Hataitai: Fernbank Studio, 2004.

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The cluster of Godwit-Random House Poet Laureate publications funded by Te Mata Estate. The Tuwhare copy is a signed one.

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Bill Manhire, What to call your child (Auckland: Godwit, 1999), Hone Tuwhare, Piggy-back Moon (Auckland: Godwit, 2001), Elizabeth Smither, Red Shoes (Auckland: Godwit, 2003), and Brian Turner, Footfall (Auckland: Godwit, 2005).

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A typescript copy of Elizabeth Smither's 'Red Shoes', which she kindly signed specially for this exhibition.

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Brian Turner was the fourth Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate. His long poem Faces in the Water was printed by John Holmes in the Bibliography Room at the University of Otago Library. John Mitchell, an Oamaru artist, produced the images (five in total) and Inge Doesburg, a local Dunedin printmaker, printed them. Only Sixty copies were printed. This is the artist's proof copy.

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Brian Turner, Faces in the Water. Dunedin: Bibliography Room, Otago University Library, 2004.

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Brian Turner's tokotoko stick is made from a hockey stick, in recognition of his various sporting achievements. He was a New Zealand representative in hockey. The tokotoko was carved by Jacob Scott, an artist based in the Hawkes Bay.

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