Waipara West is owned by a partnership called Tutton Sienko Hill - the partners being Paul Tutton, a wine merchant based in London, his wife Olga Sienko, an artist, his sister Vic Tutton, the business administrator and her husband Lindsay Hill, a viticulturist who manages the vineyard.

We 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 we realise that the farm had been previously owned by our family some ninety 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 but nestling in the foothills of the Southern Alps.