Southern areas suffer the problem of frost in spring. If this occurs after budburst it can destroy new shoots and developing flower clusters. Every region south of Auckland has had its share of frost damage in recent years, sometimes reducing potential crop size by more than half. We have heard stories this year from Marlborough about large numbers of helicopters inverting vineyard air so the colder air on the ground is replaced by warmer air from above.
Early summer is one of the two most critical times in the season – flowering and fruit set. Fortunately grape vines do not need the assistance of bees, as they self-pollinate. But we are still vulnerable. Weather conditions which reduce photosynthesis, ie- cold and wet, will disrupt pollination. This process, called “coulure” in France, prevents berry fertilization, with consequent reduction in crop size.
A reduced fruit set is not always a bad thing. Some grape varieties are prolific, and in most seasons will need some bunches removed to give the vines the best chance of fully ripening the remainder. A dose of cool wet weather about now can avoid the need for labour intensive bunch thinning. In our vineyard cabernet sauvignon and pinot gris can sometimes set huge quantities of bunches. This looks wonderful on the vine but very large crops compromise wine quality, especially if the weather at the business end of the season cools too quickly.
A walk through the vineyard at this time of year can be very rewarding: Grape flowers are tiny and almost invisible, but they are very abundant and in combination produce a gorgeous aroma. The heady wafting fragrance of flowering grapes can be a transport of delight and carries with it the promise of things to come.
Robin Ransom
President, Matakana Winegrowers Inc.
robin@ransomwines.co.nz
Originally published in Mahurangi Matters, December 2007
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( 3 / 368 )Given the recent Local Body Elections it seems timely to talk about the compliance requirements that are foisted by national, local and quasi-government organizations upon the citizens, especially those trying to make a living from their own enterprises. Businesses such as winegrowers, involved in producing and selling alcoholic beverages, cop it worse than most. Consider this burden:
Excise tax return & payment (Customs Dept., $1.75 per bottle); ALAC levy return & payment; GST return & payment (by definition paid on top of Excise and ALAC levy – a tax on a tax); PAYE return & payment; Property Rates (both RDC & ARC); Wastewater Discharge Record Keeping & Inspection (ARC); Sale of Liquor off licence (RDC); Sale of Liquor on licence (RDC); Certificate of Registration for food premises (RDC); Bar/Restaurant Manager Licensing (RDC); Licence Controller Qual., (Hospitality Standards Inst., NZ); ACC return & payment; APRA Levy - so we can play recorded music in a public place; NZ Wine Institute (a statutory body), annual levy; NZ Wine Institute - harvest statistics; NZ Wine Institute - acreage and varieties planted statistics; NZ Wine Institute - volume of wine sold statistics; NZ Food Safety Authority - annual audit of record keeping for exporting wine; NZ Food Safety Authority – separate audit and certificate of compliance for every wine exported; Sustainable Winegrowing (part of NZ Wine Institute), provision of comprehensive vineyard & winery operational data plus audit and levy payment; Growsafe agrichemical licensing (NZAET); Firearms licensing (NZ Police).
I am bound to have omitted something here, but this list involves time and effort in data collation and calculations, and in some cases having to undertake training courses or being audited, on something like 80 different occasions over the course of a year – an average of one and a half times per week, and payment of almost 60 cheques. There are of course a completely different set of bureaucratic requirements if you want to build, or change buildings or wastewater provisions, which in Rodney District has in my experience always involved nightmarish processes ad infinitum, until you are ready to tear your hair out.
I can report however, a recent instance of the small guys winning. During the course of preparing for the wine and food event at the recent Kowhai Festival we were required by RDC to get both a resource consent and a building permit, at a cost of $270, so we could erect a marquee for a few hours. I happened to mention this to Penny Webster in her capacity as a Northern Councillor. She responded as any normal person would, with a mixture of astonishment and exasperation, and vowed that the money would be refunded. She was as good as her word, and had sorted the matter out to our satisfaction the very next day.
Let’s hope this bodes well for the new Council’s attitude to the very vexed issue of the huge time and costs we are faced with in coping with local authority bureaucracy.
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( 3 / 539 )The Kowhai Festival has been going for many years, and in more recent times there has been a wine and food component with the activities on the main day of the Festival. The first year we had a number of local winery participants was 1998. The wine and food event was held in the Warkworth wharf carpark area that year, and a range of non-local wines were represented as well as three or four local wineries.
Ten years on we are pleased to say the tradition is continuing, and the wine and food section will be back in its original location by the wharf. This time there are a number of improvements which we hope all will approve of. We have eight participants – all local wineries. As the Kowhai Festival is a traditional celebration of life in the Mahurangi and Matakana area, we decided that the wines represented should all be grown in this region.
We will have a good selection of local food producers in amongst the winery stalls and there will be no bottle sales this year. In previous years the liquor licence for the day has allowed sales of full bottles of wine, but we feel this has the potential to spoil the atmosphere. You can sample the wines on show by buying a Festival winetaster glass, which is yours to keep and also gives you one free taste of your choice. Subsequent tastes must be paid for.
This year Matakana Winegrowers will be donating any surplus from sales of Festival winetaster glasses, after costs have been covered, to the Centre at Warkworth Project. The size of the donation will depend on the number of glasses we sell, so do come along, buy a glass, sample some wines and join in the Festival fun.
All we need to make the day a real cracker is to have nice weather, although fortunately wine tasting is an all-weather activity!
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( 2.9 / 534 )If you have read much in recent years about wine you will have encountered the word “terroir”. It has no English equivalent but as you might detect, the word has a geographical origin. A very brief definition is that terroir is the total natural environment of any viticultural site, so it includes such things as temperature, sunlight, rainfall, wind, humidity, topography, altitude, slope, aspect, geology, soil, and soil water relations. From the infinite interactive possibilities of this list of variables it is obvious that terroir implies unique.
Why is terroir an issue? Consider this: a large proportion of all the wine available to us, whether from New Zealand or imported, cannot claim a meaningful terroir origin. It is manufactured in industrial circumstances and volumes, often with grapes from a number of regions or sub-regions and then blended or otherwise manipulated to ensure the resultant beverage is much the same this year as it was last year and before. These wines are generally competently made, inexpensive, and for many, enjoyable to drink – they have to be in order to sell. But they can never reflect the sense of place which single-vineyard, terroir-based wines always do, by definition.
It is inevitable that the uniqueness and authenticity which terroir imparts will become increasingly sought out by wine drinkers looking to understand how and why the Bordeaux blend wines from Matakana for example, differ from those of Hawkes Bay, and how and why the Matakana wines differ from one vintage to the next.
The satisfaction which comes with the ability to discern and discriminate in this way cannot be overstated in a world flooded with high quality goods and experiences. It will never lead to the demise of “manufactured” wine because as with most other consumer goods, there will always be a demand for a broad range of prices and qualities.
But for the Matakana terroirists, characterized as we are by family owned, single vineyard winegrowing operations, the notion of terroir cements our place, especially amongst the cognoscenti, as producers of unique and interesting wines. This will ensure that demand for Matakana wines, and in its own small way the prosperity of the region, continues to grow into the future.
Robin Ransom
President, Matakana Winegrowers Inc.
robin@ransomwines.co.nz
Originally published in Mahurangi Matters, September 2007
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( 3 / 332 )There are hundreds of grape varieties which belong to the world’s only true winegrape species vitis vinifera. It is thought to have originated south of the Black Sea, in the region now known as Georgia and Armenia. This area is very close to Mount Ararat, where, according to the Bible, Noah’s Ark came to rest, and where Noah apparently settled, planted the first vineyard, and became the first winemaker. The earliest scientific evidence for cultivation of vinifera dates back at least 6000 years, and the earliest evidence of deliberate winemaking dates to about 5500 years ago.
In the following few thousand years vitis vinifera spread all over the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Europe. In the course of this vast dispersal in space and time, genetic variation would inevitably occur through natural selection. Human intervention in this process would have accelerated it, so that in local areas certain variants came to be valued more than others, and hence the eventual development of the hundreds, maybe thousands of region-specific varieties of vitis vinifera we are now blessed with.
Most of the varieties grown in New Zealand today originated in France. Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley and Bordeaux; Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Burgundy and Champagne; Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc from Bordeaux; Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer from Alsace and Germany; Syrah (Shiraz) from the Rhone Valley. As time goes on the range of varieties and countries of origin is extending – Sangiovese and Montepulciano from Italy for example.
Being freed from many of Europe’s restrictive rules and regulations about what can be grown where has ensured a pioneering experimentation in New Zealand, which has demonstrated the great versatility of vitis vinifera varieties and undone many myths in the process. For example the most widely planted variety in the warm, moist, windy, maritime-influenced climate of Matakana is pinot gris, and general opinion is that it does rather well here. Yet this variety originated in the cool, dry, continental climate of Eastern France.
Despite the fact that the varieties we work with have been transplanted into thoroughly foreign soils and climates, the consensus seems to be that New Zealand wines have a uniqueness in their fresh, clean fruitiness which gives them a universal appeal, recognisable but also quite different from their illustrious European ancestors.
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