Halite wines

Halite is the creation of Haidee Johnson. Named North Island Young Winemaker in 2018, Haidee is based in Martinborough, where she works with fruit from organic growers to craft wonderfully authentic wines that embody and celebrate their place of origin. In her words: ‘Halite is my way of celebrating the delicate dance of life, its moments of joy, balance and unpredictability. Through wines that are authentic, expressive and alive, I hope to share a little of that wonder with you.’ Raising a young family and in the midst of harvesting this year’s vintage, Haidee found the time to sit down and talk with us.

You founded Halite in 2021, as covid was still manifesting its effects upon our lives. What compelled you to start up your own winery, and why then?

I was working full time at a winery as covid hit, and I also became pregnant. So that was a real shift in my career direction, my pathway. I didn’t go back to that job after maternity leave, but quickly found that I was really missing an important part of myself.

You sort of lose a bit of your identity when you become a parent, and the flexibility to do the work on your own terms - the one making all the decisions and in control of everything. It was a really beautiful journey, and I think it was the way it was supposed to be for me. I wouldn't go back now, I don't think.

Pretty crazy to be doing it at a time like covid. I don't think I really put any thought into, you know, financial downturns and recessions, and all of those things that are probably pretty important when you're starting a business. I just went in fully with heart and passion, and at quite a small scale, where my livelihood didn't depend on it.

Why the name Halite? What does the term ‘salt of the earth’ mean to you?

Halite is the term for rock salt, and I interpret it as ‘salt-of-the-earth’ wines. So it's all about authenticity, connection, respect for the land, for the growers, for the people who drink the wines. I want my wines to feel honest and expressive, not a style that's imposed in the cellar. So all of those things combined is what gives Halite its life and its meaning.

What do the complexities of organic winegrowing and winemaking introduce to the way you operate?

Organic wine growing introduces a lot of complexities on many different levels, because you're working really closely with the season, the weather and the natural pressures of the vineyard. It requires a great deal of observation and adaptability. I think from a winemaking perspective, you already have fruit that has a really strong sense of place; so the focus is on preserving that, as opposed to shaping it heavily.

Do you have any discussion or interaction with your growers regarding how they approach their methods? And vice versa: do they share any thoughts on the wines derived from their fruit?

I source my fruit from two vineyards: the Grava Vineyard is eight kilometres south of Martinborough. It's relatively cool climate, or cooler climate than Martinborough. Its terrace is the Ruamāhanga River. And then I get my other lot of fruit from the Osawa Vineyard in the Mangatahi Terraces. So, again, a cooler climate of Hawke's Bay, and that also terraces the Ngararuro river, so there are a lot of parallels and similarities between where I get my fruit from. So, I guess cooler climate is really my thing.

Those two growers are really well established in organics and farming in general, so I don't dictate any of the way in which they farm; the proof is in the pudding, really, when you're getting delicious, great-quality fruit. In saying that, I’d love to have a couple of rows myself that I could play with, or work how I would like; but yes, I’m pretty happy.

I actually make my wine at the Grava winery, so we're really lucky that Alistair [Gardner] lets a few of us smaller producers create our wines there. It generates a really collaborative community as well; there are a few people who do get fruit from that block, and it is really fun coming together and trying our wines side by side, because although it's the same vineyard and the same fruit, I think we all have slightly different expressions of what it can look like, and I just find it so fascinating.

What does ‘low intervention’ look like in your hands?

Not adding anything to, or removing anything from the wine, but using my senses and intuition, and intervening only when necessary. There are some things that I do purposely which aid in that method; so I'm picking when I feel like there's a natural balance, wild fermentations, getting a wine microbially stable so I don't have to filter. And just intervening when it’s needed. I think it's important that you still have a winemaker’s tools and resources available to use when you need to.

What are you trying not to do in the winery?

Prescribed winemaking - doing something for the sake of doing it, or being overly cautious. Not really using your senses, just doing things because a textbook says that's what you should do. I try and gravity as much as I can in the winery, so I try and minimize mechanical equipment - pumps and whatnot.

You define yourself as ‘one of Aotearoa’s tiniest producers’. Being as small as you are, what does that let you do differently?

I call myself a tiny producer because I want to give people some idea of the scale of what I'm doing, and I use a little bit of context where I describe that Martinborough or the Wairarapa make 1% of New Zealand's wine, and then I probably make 0.1% of Martinborough's wine. So, just homing in on the fact that it is super-small scale.

What does that let me do differently? I think there's a lot of creative freedom that comes with that. I think there are probably more challenges, just through trying to cash flow such a small-scale project, the logistics that come with making everything so small; it's a marginal industry anyway, but yeah, it's really tight when there's not a lot of volume or wiggle room or margin spreading. It also keeps me humble and honest and really clear about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Do you harbour aspirations to grow larger, or are you content to remain at your current size for the forseeable future?

I've been making Halite for five years, and it's always been very small. That's been on purpose, in order to manage and maintain my life with my two little boys, which is my main priority. Scaling up is easy to do, but it's the sales that require time, so yeah, I'm just trying to manage that time out to trade, because I do all of that myself as well. I guess there's been some success in Halite, where it generally sells out within a few months.

Which sounds like it shouldn't be a problem, but there's a lot of work that goes into making the wine and marketing the wine and selling the wine. It's tricky. In saying that, I have actually doubled production this year. It might sound like that's a lot, but it's really not; I’ve done seven tonnes this year, which is still very small. It's probably the same amount of work in terms of winemaking, but we'll require a bit more time in trade, a bit more time in sales. But I feel like that's manageable as of this year.

And the foreseeable future? If it sells well, then I can get more fruit. Although probably one of the biggest challenges is securing organic fruit. It's an interesting question, because a lot of people do ask me about getting bigger, like that's what everyone would desire. But I really like having things at a manageable size.

With winemaking, how much do you consider is science and craft, and how much is intuition and art?

It's a good question, and I think every winemaker will probably have a different answer to this. I did a BA in Wine Science, and I would say that the majority of my winemaking experience has been in commercial wineries. At that kind of size, scale and training, it really is a lot of science. While it's important to understand that science, I think I'm definitely more leaning into the intuitive and arts side of it now; I think I get a lot more reward and joy from that.

In saying that, I do still use that science background. I test pH, TAs and sulphur, and I think from those three analyses alone, which are very basic, you can gauge where a wine's at. It's almost like I'm backtracking or trying to unlearn some of those commercial processes which I think go hand in hand with the science. That might be a controversial thing to say, and I hope it doesn't upset anybody, but I would say for me, definitely more intuition, art, just with the foundations of science.

What drew you to base yourself in Martinborough?

I'm actually a Wairarapa girl originally, but didn't get into wine until I was living in Hawke’s Bay, so I spent I don’t know how long traveling around making wine. I think it wasn't until I came to Martinborough for a job opportunity that I really fell in love with wine. Something just seemed to click, and it's all centred around Pinot Noir; I've always had a bit of a crush on Martinborough Pinot Noir. There's this wonderful expressive character; it's very sensitive to place. It keeps me really curious, and I think that was the whole pull to wine in the first place; so yeah, that's why I was drawn to base myself here. And I think it's also been solidified by community, lifestyle, environment. It’s a beautiful place to live.

Do you have favourite regions when it comes to the fruit you use?

I only get fruit from two vineyards in two regions. But I find them both really exciting, and I love them for different reasons. Obviously Martinborough is Pinot Noir, which is my heart, my love. But Hawke's Bay is really familiar to me as well, and the quality of organic fruit coming from Hawke's Bay is really special. I've spent a lot of time in Hawke's Bay too, so it kind of feels like my roots are in both.

Do you enjoy the unpredictability of how a particular vintage might manifest? Does it at times mean rapid adjustment of approaches?

Love this question, because something that gets me really excited is the ability to adapt. Obviously, we have no control over the weather, or the seasons or how a vineyard responds. So maybe the best way to answer would be to use an example: the Halite Ruby is Sangiovese. I had intended on making a red Sangiovese, but in 2025 the vineyard just stalled at a certain point, and there was really wonderful phenolic ripeness, but it was only at 19 Brix, which for context, that’s like 10% alcohol potential.

For a red wine, I prefer to have a bit more alcohol, a bit more body. There also wasn't the depth of anthocyanins - the colour, So, I picked it and still processed it as a red: I de-stemmed it, it went to fermenter and it had a three-day carbonic maceration. I was tasting it every day, thinking ‘okay, well what am I going to do with this? It's tasting really good, I’m enjoying this part of it.’ And then I decided after three days that I was really happy with the level of flavour and tannin and colour, and just the overall prettiness of the wine, the florals.

I pressed it and finished ferment in stainless steel, and then it just became what it was. I used my intuition to guide it into where it wanted to go, without intending it to be a particular style; but it’s one of my most favourite wines that I've made for that reason. I wasn't trying to make a red, I wasn't trying to make a rosé, I wasn't trying to push it anywhere; but what came out was just a really exciting, energetic, lively wine.

So, I love the rapid adjustment of approaches. It keeps you on your toes, it keeps things interesting. It's also very humbling, and that's something I love about wine in general: the more you learn, the more experience you have, the more you realize you don't really know anything.

What sorts of learnings have you taken into your own winery from your time at other operations?

You always pick up on things everywhere you go, and it might be something specific from a winemaker, or a person you worked with, some equipment you worked with, varieties or styles. There are so many influencing variables, and there isn’t necessarily one thing that comes to mind. I think having started on that commercial scale and then going small was really interesting. Learning about operations and systems and structure and framework and stuff like that, it's not necessarily something I pull into my own cellar or winemaking now because it's a very different scale of operation.

Do you have any winemaker heroes, or people who have influenced your own approach to winemaking?

There are a couple of things that come to mind. James Millton and Millton wines were, quite early on, fundamental to my perspective on winemaking. Interactions with James and Chenin Blanc, they really stood out in my career. I think there is this expressiveness in those wines and the way that James would talk about them that I hadn't experienced before, so it definitely shaped a lot of who I am as a winemaker today.

The other isn't a person, it's a place: I was introduced to wines from the Jura region in France, and absolutely fell in love with them. They're wines that are alive and they're honest, and they pushed me to think about wine from a different perspective - thinking about texture and energy and preservation. Those are really some of the guiding principles that shape Halite.

Sel de Terre: what were you chasing with this Sauvignon Blanc?

The Sauvignon Blanc that comes from Grava is quite special. I really wanted to capture the purity that there is with that wine, so it wasn't so much about making it a certain type of way, but more about preserving the energy of it. The wine was barrel fermented with indigenous yeast and then went into tank, stainless steel on lees, for about six months. It’s a real mix of classic and modern winemaking, I think.

Stainless steel is really classic for Sauvignon Blanc, but not necessarily the barrel ferment or the lees contact. I think the resulting wine is quite pretty. It has this really delicate side to it, but still this richness and intensity that kind of builds. ‘Sel de Terre’ means salt of the earth, so the wine really reflects that quite well for me. It has this wonderful minerality and salinity to it as well, which is all fruit derived.

Ruby: what’s the attraction of playing in that space between rosé and red?

I really love what chilled reds have done for our industry. They're pushing the ideas – I think mostly for consumers - on what the space is between a rosé and a red. Which I think is really great, because I love rosés too, but people don't necessarily think of them as being a serious wine, whereas a chilled red has solidified itself quite easily, which is interesting.

It wasn’t about it morphing into either one of those. A lot of my wines aren't named by the variety - they’re given another name, and it's because I have this romantic idea that people will be able to make their own connection with a wine rather than boxing it into categories such as  ‘rosé’ or ‘red’.

I like the idea that people can have their own experience, and then the wine becomes more of a conduit to the environment for them. The Ruby kind of does that - it's neither one nor the other, but if you prefer rosé or prefer a chilled red, then it sort of fits for both those groups, which is really nice. I think a lot of the wines I make aren't necessarily ‘boxy’, so that works for me quite well.

Light Dry Red: what makes it feel both light and serious?

This was actually one of the first wines I made for Halite. It was initially inspired by the light dry reds of Australia, which are known as the Australian Burgundies. They were making these in the 1940s in the Hunter Valley. They were typically a Pinot Shiraz, and they'd play with it in years that weren't favourable for either variety, which I thought was smart, but also just a really fun concept. Again, leaning into that idea of people making their own connection to the wines and not boxing them.

That fitted from the get-go into what I was actually trying to do. I should say that I also do have wines that are named varietally, and they're definitely more of the classic styles, more traditional, truer to what you could expect. So, I was making Pinot Syrah, and loved that, but then when I got my hands on the Sangiovese, something magic happened with the collaboration of the two varieties. There's this wonderful core of fruit that you get from the Pinot, but it's tempered and structured by the Sangiovese, which gives it this wonderful, fresh acidity and tannin and colour and depth. So the two together, they're light and serious because of the magic that happens with the symbiotic connection between the two.

Your wines are easy to drink but still have shape. How deliberate is that?

Yeah, it's quite deliberate. I think it's intuition, rather than a fixed idea of style. I want the wines to be approachable and enjoyable but still have structure and something to hold on to. For me that balance comes from focusing on texture, picking at the right time, being really gentle in the winery, chasing phenolic brightness over physiological brightness. So while they may feel easier to drink, there's still shape and energy underneath, and that's what keeps it really interesting.

What are you drinking them with at home?

Love that question. I'm sitting here with the Ruby right now, and I'm thinking about a chippy, charcuterie situation. Some nice proper crisps with some charcuterie, maybe some prosciutto, some pickled peppers, a little bit of hot honey over the top. That would be magic right now. The Sel de Terre, really versatile, that wine. What’s my favourite with that? Like a roast chicken, something really classic, really simple. A lemon and sage butter, that kind of vibe. The light dry red? Really fresh stuff, actually. Kind of feels like an all-day wine, that one. What am I having with that? Pizza - I mean, you can't go wrong, right? Probably a mushroom risotto or something with a bit of umami.

What are you exploring next, or keeping open as a possibility?

There's a lot of uncertainty in the world at the moment, so just kind of playing it safe. I have grown this year, so there's going to be a bit more of a focus on sales and brand visibility. Keeping open as a possibility? I mean it's my dream to have a little block that I can farm myself. Being able to farm and make wine from something that you've grown is ultimately rewarding. I just compare it to having your own flowers, or veggie garden that you grow and then you get to eat. It's very satisfying.

Juggling a full-time winemaking job with raising small children requires circus-level dexterity. Any tips?

Be kind to yourself. It's not easy. My winemaking job isn't even full time, but it's still the juggle, and the balance is still an absolute struggle. We have to rely on our village, really. Family get the call-up quite a lot, especially around vintage time. My partner is a brewer, and so hop harvest is always at the same time as vintage, which presents its own difficulties and challenges.

Is part of your focus on organics derived from a concern for the world we’re seemingly leaving our kids?

It definitely plays a part, especially now, thinking about the world we're leaving for our kids. But it actually started somewhere simpler for me: curiosity. I've always been interested in understanding where things come from, and that naturally led me into organic farming and a deeper awareness of soil health, nutrient density and the impact on the environment. Over time, it has become more of a lifestyle than a single decision. For me, it's not just about one element, it's holistic. It’s the land, it’s the environment, it’s the people you work with, the wider community. Everything is really connected.

Functioning on an organic level is obviously important to you. In many fields, the complexities associated with organic and environmentally-friendly production can generate higher prices on the shelves, in the process often becoming the exclusive preserve of the more well off. Can you see ways to generate a ‘national shift’ across to organics in general, where these sorts of products become more accessible to a wider range of people?

A national shift to organics is definitely possible. It's not just about changing practices in the vineyard, it's also about education, accessibility and support for growers. Organic farming is more labour intensive. There's higher risk, so there needs to be a real backing, both financially and within the industry, to make it viable long term. But from a consumer perspective, it will come through connection; making organic wines more accessible in terms of price and communication is key, removing some of the barriers and making it feel less niche.

I remember hearing a saying that was quite profound: whatever you buy, you're sending a message up the supply chain, creating demand for that. That concept on its own makes me always stop and think about what it is exactly that I'm buying, especially if I'm in a supermarket and there's a shelf with something that's organic and something that’s not. You want to reach for the thing that's cheaper, but I'm always thinking about that supply chain.

What would you say to the younger generations of drinkers, the Gen Zs, the Millennials, who are perhaps more into in consuming beverages other than wine? What approaches do you think might be of interest to them?

I think it's less about a wine ‘industry’, and more about making it feel accessible and relevant. Gen Zs and Millennials, they're curious, but they don't respond to formality or rigid rules; they want authenticity, transparency and a story that they can connect with.

We live in a shifting world, geopolitically, socially and environmentally. Where do you see the changes in the way wine may be produced, as well as marketed, in New Zealand over the next ten or twenty years?

Just a little question! I think we'll see a continued shift towards more site-driven, thoughtful production. Climate change will play a big part in that, but growers and winemakers will need to be adaptable, whether that's through different varieties, vineyard practices, or how we approach picking and style, which in the last few years has been the really hard part. Usually there's some weather stability, and that seems to be shifting now.

And there's also a move toward drinking less, but drinking better. So that will probably shape how wine is made, how it's positioned. As for the marketing side of things, I honestly can't keep up. I need all the help I can get, so if you find the answer, that would be great. 10 to 20 years is such a long time in the social media realm.

Obviously, a markedly changing climate can mean a degree of involuntary adaptation. Will certain varieties continue to flourish in our environment long term, for one. Any thoughts on this?

Some varieties will flourish, but it's unlikely that they will stay exactly as they are. We’re already seeing a shift in seasons and ripening patterns, so adaptability, again, is key. In regions like Martinborough, varieties like Pinot Noir still feel well-suited, but how we grow and manage them might need to change. Long term, we may see experimentation with different varieties or clones that are better suited to the changing conditions.

In a rapidly moving digital world obsessed with social media, many of the creative arts – music or film, for instance – have changed dramatically in the way they are both marketed and consumed, often to the financial or creative detriment of the producer. Can you see world in which something like this could happen in your chosen profession? AI-operated vineyards or wineries, for instance. Some sort of Spotify- or Netflix-style marketing of wine perhaps?

There are definitely parallels; like music or film, wine is both a product and a creative expression, so there are shifts in how it's marketed and consumed. Social media and digital platforms have definitely shaped visibility and demand, and there is a risk that things could get driven by trends rather than authenticity. That said, wine is a little different, in that it's deeply tied to the land and season and time, and you can't rush any of those things. I think technology and AI can be really powerful tools, but they won't change the overall integrity of wine, and definitely wouldn't replace a wine grower or a winemaker.

Halite wines are… (finish the sentence)

Halite wines are approachable, textural and full of energy.

I’ve had a glass of wine now, in the sun, which is feeling glorious. I really appreciate the thoughtful questions. Thank you very much.

And thank you. Great wines. We look forward to what comes next from Halite.