Viticultural revolution
Picture the scene: it's Saturday night in cool nightclub Cardiac, and style queens strut their stuff, sipping passion fruit cosmos in a super-slick interior. No, it's not Soho, or Manhattan - but Auckland, New Zealand. How did things get so hip? It certainly wasn't like this 10 years ago, when hip was a hippie hangout in Parnell Road (now replaced by chi-chi boutiques). Wander down Auckland's Ponsonby Road today and it's achingly cool. And you can pretty much repeat this scenario in New Zealand's other major cities.
And there's more - dining is on a par with New York and London. Maybe it's not quite up to Gordon Ramsay level (which is decidedly not New Zealand's style), but it is seriously good food presented in up-to-the-minute interiors.
So what happened? The wine industry happened, that's what. "The wine industry has driven the higher standards in the food industry here," declared Julie Dalzell, publisher of New Zealand's leading food and wine magazine, Cuisine, on a breakfast TV show.
New Zealand's quality wine industry has come a long way in a very short time, from its first shaky steps in the early 1980s to the 398 wineries there are today. Admittedly, New Zealand still produces only 1% of the world's wine, but look at what it has achieved in terms of varietal recognition.
We're talking Sauvignon Blanc, of course. Just about every UK pub, bar, restaurant and club has a New Zealand Sauvignon on its list - the industry can't get enough of its hallmark pungent gooseberry flavours. We have to thank Montana for that - as New Zealand's largest winery, it put the country on the map with its Sauvignon Blanc in the early 1980s. Montana, by the way, now claims to produce the world's most Pinot Noir. And as this grape is seen as far more elevated in connoisseur terms - read "winemakers' Holy Grail" - and New Zealand does extremely well with it, then we can expect a baby boom of buffs among us very shortly.
But, as you have probably noticed, New Zealand is not just about Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. It can make great Chardonnay, fabulous Pinot Gris, stunning Riesling and interesting Gewürztraminer, even Verdelho (Esk) and Viognier (Te Mata), plus a whole host of reds, from Cabernet and Merlot to Syrah and even Grenache (Trinity Hill).
The rather scattergun approach is a young, New World winemaking-country thing. And, like other such countries, New Zealand is still experimenting with different grapes and different clones on different sites, working out which grows best where and then learning what to do (or what not to do) with the fruit once they get it back to the winery.
There's still a lot of heavy-handed oak treatment going on. The message that oaky Chardonnays have had their day isn't quite getting through - on the evidence of a line-up of new releases at the annual Wine New Zealand show in the middle of August.
At that event, there was also a worrying number of overly chewy reds in New Zealand's Bordeaux-style blends and varietals. But some producers are getting it right, and you can be confident that once they've got a handle on it, with diligent site and clonal selection, the country will make more well-balanced reds.
On the subject of site selection, there has been a lot of that going on in New Zealand over the past few years. Pioneers such as Rudi Bauer and Alan Brady in central Otago were laughed at when they first announced that they would grow grapes in the region's sometimes-chilly valleys. "It's a ski resort," critics sniggered, only to later eat their hats when Robert Parker gave a big thumbs-up to Felton Road's 1997 Pinot Noir. Now, Central Otago is on everybody's lips, with the likes of Rippon and Carrick, Mount Difficulty and Gibbston Valley. Today, Felton Road enjoys the same cult status as Marlborough's revered Cloudy Bay.
Marginal climate?
US investors are falling over themselves to grab a piece of the action, and even New Zealand's principal players, such as Nobilo, are taking a piece of the pie with new plantings or grower contracts in the region. And they said it was a marginal climate. "Do you know, we've not had a bad vintage here since 1996," smirks Brady, who makes stunning Pinot under the Mount Edward label.
The folks in Hawke's Bay on the North Island are so excited by one particular area that they have just given it its own appellation - Gimblett Gravels. On the inland edge of the plains, it is gaining a reputation for its free-draining alluvial gravel soils, and those with a piece of it are quickly realising its potential - check out Te Awa, Trinity Hill and Babich. Reds rule here, mostly Merlot and Cabernet, though Chardonnay and, particularly, Syrah are proving themselves. There is still a lesson or two to be learnt about tannin management but, tasting recent releases of Unison and Craggy Range, you wouldn't know they have a problem.
In fact, Craggy Range is putting its money where its mouth is, with a little help from a wine-savvy US investor with deep pockets. Some NZ$55m (£16.8m) is being spent on its new winery, called Giants, which is all set to upstage the region's flashiest, Sileni Estate. Ebullient winemaker Steve Smith has managed to persuade opera diva Kiri Te Kanawa and Tim Finn, the former front man of rock band Crowded House, to duet together for the opening in what promises to be the Kiwi wine event of 2003.
It's the scale of new planting in Marlborough that really puts things into perspective. Villa Maria and Montana have both spread themselves wide here - Montana is doubling its Chardonnay production, and Villa Maria is, well, just doubling production; but it's Nobilo which has planted the largest stake to date, with some 900 acres in the Awatere Valley, 10km south of Blenheim. And Wither Hills must surely be laughing - it has just sold to Australian brewer Lion Nathan for NZ$52m (£15.9m), though winemaker and former owner Brent Marris is staying on to oversee production. When the local government gets going on a proposed irrigation system for the southern part of Marlborough, you'll see a great deal more planting there, too.
Like all the best New World wine pioneers, New Zealand's winemakers are spending any spare time they have overseas, in the vineyards of Burgundy, Alsace, Bordeaux and Oregon, soaking up centuries of know-how, returning home with new techniques, and even creating a few of their own. Take Botry-Zen, for example. This all-natural, home-grown product keeps botrytis at bay, replacing objectionable chemical sprays.
On that subject, here's another fact for you - a staggering 80% of New Zealand's vineyards use sustainable viticulture, with a growing number going down the organic route. Millton and Seresin lead the way, perpetuating the industry's slogan: "The riches of a clean, green, land."
The screwcap issue Finally, there's the screwcap issue. Watch these pages over the next few months as we chart the progress of screwcap wines in the UK on-trade from New Zealand's second-largest privately owned winery, Villa Maria - something that many (but not all - there are still some sceptics) in the industry are gearing up to follow if the response from punters is positive.
There's no reason why screwcaps shouldn't be a success. Until the cork producers get their act together, screwcaps appear to be the best closure around, as an illuminating tasting confirmed. The New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative, with 32 members, lined up wines under screwcaps alongside the same wines under cork, with different grape varieties from different regions. In all but one case, the wines under screwcaps showed brighter fruit with more varietal character. The wines under cork were flatter, even showing up a curious (and presumably unintentional) oaky character.
Is any of this massive development already filtering through to the UK? Well, in London for Sunday lunch at Notting Hill gastropub the Westbourne, three tables around me (as well as ours) were drinking Grove Mill Riesling. Now that's what I call change.
Life after Sauvignon Blanc - 10 New Zealand wines to blow your mind
- Unison 2000 Merlot Syrah Cabernet Hawke's Bay Stokes Fine Wines, 020 8944 5979
- Neudorf Moutere Chardonnay 2001 Nelson
Richards Walford, 01780 460451 - Huia Riesling 2001 Marlborough
Bibendum, 020 7722 5577 - Pegasus Bay Sémillon-Sauvignon 2001 Waipara
Fine Wines of New Zealand, 020 7482 0093 - Montana Patutahi Estate Gewrztraminer 2000 Gisborne
Montana UK, 020 8323 8196 - Dry River Pinot Noir 2001 Martinborough Justerini & Brooks, 020 7493 8721
- Rippon Riesling 2001 Central Otago
Negociants UK, 01582 462859 - Felton Road Block 3 Pinot Noir 2001 Central Otago
Cornish Point, 01252 705102 - Palliser Pencarrow Pinot Noir 2001 Martinborough
Justerini & Brooks, 020 7493 8721 - Seresin Pinot Gris 2002 Marlborough John Armit, 020 7908 0620
For more information call New Zealand Winegrowers on 020 7973 8079 or e-mail info@winzuk.com
