Wine lakes and unpicked grapes are in part symptoms of more discerning wine drinkers and a declining global demand for cheap wine. We have avoided this problem in New Zealand by producing wines at the premium end of the market, but this does not prevent the importation of European and Australian wines. This puts pressure on New Zealand producers, because for a variety of reasons – cool climate growing conditions, weather vagaries, high labour costs, absence of government agricultural subsidies, and economies of scale, we are unable to produce wine cheaply.
The answer for New Zealand winegrowers has been to get into the export game ourselves. Between 1996 and 2006 the volume of wine exported increased from 11 to 58 million litres – more than 500% increase. During the same period, wine imports into New Zealand increased by about 70% - the rest of the world seems to want our wines much more than we want theirs!
As with other New Zealand regions, wine exports from Matakana have also increased enormously in recent years. Talk to any of the seven or eight local winegrowers who export and you will hear stories about how enthusiastically Matakana wines are received around the world. Matakana-grown Bordeaux-blend reds are being consumed in top-end restaurants in New York, London, and Sydney amongst other places, and our pinot gris and chardonnay wines are exported to a wide range of countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
The Antipodean and Providence have been exporting for the longest time, but Matakana Estate is by a substantial margin the largest producer and exporter of wine in Matakana. Other Matakana wineries currently exporting are Brick Bay Wines, Hawk’s Nest Orchard, Hyperion Wines, Ransom Wines and Takatu Vineyard.
Robin Ransom
robin@ransomwines.co.nz
Originally published in Mahurangi Matters, March 2007
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( 3.1 / 438 )These days there is considerable public concern about environmental damage from careless farming practices, and awareness of the need to farm more sustainably. So it is understandable that people feel concerned when they see sprays being used in vineyards.
Most vineyard spraying involves use of products which are relatively benign in the environment, indeed many are acceptable for organic farming regimes. Most protect vines against fungal diseases – black spot, downy mildew, powdery mildew, and various forms of bunch rot. A whole new range of horticultural sprays has been developed in recent years involving use of natural control agents, generally bacteria or other fungi, which either attack the harmful fungi or move into their ecological niche and prevent them from developing.
All chemical sprays are subject to MRLs – Maximum Residue Limits, which are readily measurable in wine, and legally enforceable. MRLs restrict the amount of such sprays winegrowers can use, and the times they can use them, ie- not to be used within a certain number of days before harvest.
In addition, New Zealand Winegrowers, the statutory industry body which all winegrowers must belong to, has in recent years established an organization called Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand. Winegrowers are not obliged to belong to this body but currently 60% of New Zealand’s vineyard area belongs and is accredited to SWNZ.
SWNZ was developed to provide a “best practice” model of environmental care in the vineyard, to promote responsible behaviour in terms of the well-being of staff, neighbours and the community, and to guarantee better quality assurance from vineyard to bottle. SWNZ places stringent restrictions on the use of agrichemicals and addresses issues such as soil health and water quality. Members are audited on their compliance, and failure to comply results in loss of accreditation.
Even without restrictions and regulations winegrowers know that in order to compete in a crowded world wine market we all need to manage our vineyards as closely as we can to New Zealand Winegrowers’ motto “the riches of a clean green land”.
Robin Ransom
President, Matakana Winegrowers Inc.
robin@ransomwines.co.nz
Originally published in Mahurangi Matters, February 2007
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( 3 / 375 )What has become known in the trade as “The Wither Hills Debacle” has important implications for winegrowers and wine consumers everywhere.
Because this featured in the national news for days on end last month most readers will know what it is about. Briefly, the Wither Hills wine company produced two quite different sauvignon blanc wines but labeled them identically. One of them, of which there was a very small amount available, secured a top ranking in a Cuisine magazine wine tasting. The other, which comprised the vast bulk of all the wine with this label, was not entered in the Cuisine competition.
It is important to point out that there was no quality issue in either case. By all accounts, both wines were of good quality. However, this is not the point, and whether or not Wither Hills did this deliberately is also not the point. The issue is that wine consumers have a right to expect that every bottle they buy of a wine with an identical label will be identical wine – especially when claims of superiority are made by way of medals or trophies or whatever.
Some Matakana winemakers choose to enter wine shows and others do not, and our reasons for deciding one way or the other are many and varied. However, wine buyers who purchase a Matakana-grown wine which has a medal sticker attached can be more confident that every bottle they buy will be identical, because none of us make large enough batches of wine to cause the problem Wither Hills faced. They produce such a large volume of sauvignon blanc that it is difficult for them to blend the various components into a single batch before bottling.
What this event has highlighted is the fallibility of the wine show system, and the potential for corrupt practise which it allows. It is now up to the organisers of wine shows to take steps to ensure this sort of duplicity cannot happen again.
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( 3 / 461 )With the recent formation of Matakana Winegrowers Incorporated, we have finally been able to get some idea of the size and shape of the local winegrowing industry.
Here are some results from a recent survey of members which may interest readers.
• The group was incorporated earlier this year and has 29 members. A measure of how new the local winegrowing industry is can be seen in the fact that our longest established member had their first vintage in 1991 and only six had harvested grapes before 2000. Four had their first vintage this year and another four will have their first in 2007.
• The 2006 vintage was produced from 78 hectares (about 193 acres) and by 2008, there will be 98 hectares (242 acres) in production. While this makes us a rather small region compared with say Marlborough or Hawkes Bay, we would argue that size doesn’t matter. We are all small family-run businesses focused firmly on quality – there are no wine factories in Matakana. We tend our vineyards by hand to maximize fruit quality, and as the motto adopted some years ago by the original group of Matakana winegrowers says “it’s where we are that makes the difference”. We all believe passionately in the Matakana region as a place where great wines can be grown.
• The earliest growers saw the region as a place for red grapes. While more white acreage has been planted recently, there will still be a slight predominance of red grapes in 2008 – 54% of the total. By that time, the largest single grape variety will be the white grape pinot gris, which will account for almost one third of the total regional acreage. Syrah (17%) and merlot (12%) will be the two main red varieties. These three plus chardonnay, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and sangiovese will comprise just on 85% of the total Matakana vineyard, and the remainder will comprise a further seven red varieties and six whites.
The survey paints a confident picture of the Matakana wine industry which will only strengthen in the years ahead.
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( 3 / 461 )When pastoral farmers are hanging out for lots of rain after the generally dry northern summers, grape growers want the opposite – if there is to be rain at all we want it to be brief and moderate.
However this does not mean that moisture will cause problems. Consider humidity. Many people believe humidity is bad for grape vines. Wrong. On the contrary, moderately high humidity is essential for grape vines to function properly. Not only that, moderate humidity is associated with high wine quality, while its absence in hot and dry climates has negative consequences for the composition of grapes and ultimately for wine quality.
The Oxford Companion to Wine, in its entry on humidity, classifies the world’s wine growing regions into high, intermediate and low afternoon humidity areas, and notes that almost all of the world’s wine regions with high wine quality reputations are also high humidity regions.
Humidity can still cause problems – a few days of close to 100% relative humidity, combined with warm temperatures and absence of either sun or wind can cause serious fungal infection. Fortunately this combination of conditions is rare. The sunny and windy nature of our climate almost always ensures that we escape the worst effects of persistent excessive humidity.
Likewise with rain. All plants, grapes included, need moderate rain throughout their seasonal cycle. Only in the critical few weeks before harvest will heavy, sustained rain cause problems. In the north we have plenty of rain, but most of it falls at times of year that will not cause concern.
So when people assert that our climate is too wet or too humid to grow wine grapes, that is a myth. The real issue grape growers face throughout the country is weather, not climate. Inclement weather can occur in all winegrowing regions, whether Marlborough, Martinborough or Matakana. We are all playing a percentages game, and in the Matakana region the numbers are on our side much more often than not, which is about as good as it gets anywhere in New Zealand.
Robin Ransom
Matakana Winegrowers Inc.
robin@ransomwines.co.nz
Originally published in Mahurangi Matters, November 2006
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