Feature Article : a view from down under (New Zealand)

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A View from Down Under: islands in the dream

New Zealand Pinot Noir, Netted
and Threatened by Weather

A pastoral scene. Gentle slopes and broad valleys with varied green quilted squares. Protective mountains in the distance, foreground hills grading forever more faintly gray as they disappear into the horizon. Animals grazing. A rigid symmetry and order of vineyard rows trying to tame a tall sky, tumultuous and roiling with black clouds, bearing rain, escaping the wet tropical greenness of the coast. The tension is in the faces of the winery workers as they watch. Harvest has begun ominously and late, but it will get better. It is late March and this is New Zealand, not Oregon.

The New World has two pretenders to the Pinot Noir throne of Burgundy, the friendly competitors of Oregon and New Zealand. Similarities exist, as well as differences, such as the obvious opposite hemispheric seasons. Conveniently it allows our two regions to learn each other, experiencing two harvests in the same year. Cheryl is in Martinborough, on the southern end of the North Island, as I write, helping Martinborough Vineyards and their winemaker Claire Mulholland, who worked with us last harvest. Like family.

2000 Harvest at Martinborough:
press time on a balmy day

The two regions share the common challenge of cool climates, a pioneer mentality, and great raw potential for making the finesse wines of Pinot noir, Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot gris. We have an earlier start at it, but Kiwis are a quick study, travelling at any excuse (I've heard when born Kiwis are issued passports, not birth certificates), and unabashedly imitating whatever they find interesting. The Pinot Conference for winemakers, held in Oregon for 20 years and vital to the improvement of Oregon and California Pinot noir, has recently been replicated in New Zealand and, beginning next January, they will begin an International Pinot Noir Celebration of sorts.

Pinot noirs from every corner of both islands, from Californiaesque North Island to 45th Parallel, Northwest-like South Island are attempting to define NZ Pinot noir. Tiny 1000 case wineries vie for recognition against behemoth world-wide Sauvignon Blanc houses like Montana, which is growing from 5,000 to 40,000 cases of Pinot noir in two years.

Claire and Cheryl up to here
in 2000 Pinot noir fermentors

The reputation has heretofore come from established winegrowing regions, adding Pinot noir to their valley floor varietals. However, the future world class reputation will come from select, more marginal climates like those in Central Otago (far south South Island), Canterbury (mid South Island) and Nelson (maritime northwestern South Island). From my daughter Wynne and my trip in January we collected an interesting array of Pinot noirs that ranged from "nice, but not pinot noir" to round, black fruited 1998s from Canterbury and Central Otago that are every bit as impressive as 98s in Oregon.

New Zealand wineries to hunt for include: Gibbston Valley, Chard Farm, Quartz Reef, Felton Road, Pegasus Bay, Neudorf, Tasman Bay, Fromm, Palliser, Martinborough, Dry River, Ata Rangi, and Valli.

The Ol' Lamb and the Sea

Of course, like Burgundy and Oregon before it, not every vintage is that way—it almost seems to be the definition of a cool climate, that the incredible heights are not visible without some valley. This harvest, just finished on the north island, as I write, but barely begun in Central Otago, seems to be a "well it depends" harvest. Cheryl reports from Martinborough the presence of some rain and disease pressure early-on, with nice weather later, observing that two months since bud break were rainy (January and March), the growing season a little cool, but fruit ripe (25 brix) at harvest.

There is comfort in having kindred, passionate souls as friends, tilting after the same windmills as we seek, as collaborators rather than competitors, as Oregonians on the flipside.