Tucked away in the sun-warmed folds of Hawke’s Bay, Château Garage is a label born from passion, playfulness, and precision. True to its name, it began not in a grand estate, but in a humble shed—its scale small, its ambition quietly immense. Founded by a winemaker with a reverence for Bordeaux structure and Kiwi vibrancy, Château Garage embodies the spirit of the “garagiste” movement: handcrafted wines made with intent, curiosity, and a fierce sense of place.

The vineyards lie within the Gimblett Gravels and surrounding Hawke’s Bay foothills, where stony soils and maritime breezes craft ideal conditions for Bordeaux varieties. The site yields fruit with natural intensity—ripe, aromatic, yet always shaped by the region’s signature brightness and balance. Sustainable farming and low-yield practices ensure that only the most expressive fruit makes its way to barrel.

Winemaking at Château Garage is deliberately minimalist yet meticulous. Fermentation takes place in small, open-top fermenters, often with wild yeasts, to preserve nuance and texture. Aging is carried out in a curated selection of French oak barrels—some new, others seasoned—matched to the structure of each cuvée. The approach is tactile and slow, allowing the wines to evolve at their own rhythm.

The Château Garage Cabernet Merlot is a flagship blend: dark-fruited and finely structured, with cassis, dried herb, and graphite unfolding over a supple frame. It carries the density of its Gimblett Gravels roots, balanced by lifted aromatics and fresh acidity. Small-batch bottlings of Syrah or Malbec occasionally surface—spicy, wild, and vivid—alongside experimental cuvées that reflect the founder’s ongoing conversation with craft and terroir.

Château Garage may lack a château in the traditional sense, but it possesses something rarer: a fierce clarity of vision, unburdened by pretense. It is a label that celebrates the beauty of small scale, the freedom to experiment, and the quiet confidence to do things differently.

Each bottle is a whisper from the shed floor—intimate, expressive, and defiantly original.