Sommeliers' guide to New Zealand

A sommeliers’ tour of New Zealand? Wine geeks on the road, I hear you groan. Great!

We are a particular breed, no question. With our love of obscure wine lore and our obsession with the minutiae of wine labelling and winemaking practice, we are the anoraks of the wine world. However, sommeliers are also the gatekeepers of fine wine. We sort the good from the bad, the hip from the sad so that you, as a punter, end up with an amazing wine before you. There is a romantic streak to all this. The story of the wine in your glass and how it got there is the thing. We love the hand-made, the finely crafted and, above all, the transparent: wines that clearly convey where they come from and by whose hand they were produced. We will range far and wide in this never-ending search. This is why we are on the road in New Zealand.

Our trip was carefully designed by New Zealand Winegrowers to showcase the best the country has to offer. So fittingly, we start in Central Otago on the South Island, then head steadily north, taking in Waipara Valley, Marlborough and Waiheke Island, before wrapping up in Hawkes Bay.

There are three of us on this tour, and my travel companions come from divergent points of the sommeliers’ compass. With his tortoise-shell-framed glasses, scruffy beard, top-buttoned collared shirts and rolled-cuff skinny-leg trousers, Matt Swieboda, owner and sommelier of Love Tilly Devine in Darlinghurst, personifies the urban hipster set that has become an intrinsic element of the wine trade in Sydney.

This tiny wine bar is home to the rare, the natural and the arcane of the wine world, with extensive coverage given to Matt’s obsession with all things riesling.

Since opening in 2006, The Press Club has quickly established itself as one of the leading lights of the Melbourne restaurant scene. Aided in no small measure by the television success of its high-profile head chef, George Calombaris, it has rapidly expanded to now include seven venues under its umbrella. As wine buyer for this empire, Andrew Phillpot, enjoys a privileged position. He has the buying power and cellaring resources that most sommeliers can only dream of. He can cast his net wide, buy extensively, and take advantage of the economies of scale and also snap up limited allocations of rare and sought-after wines. Andrew clearly relishes the role.

With its iconic harbour-side location, city views and relaxed al fresco dining, Otto Ristorante embodies so much of what makes dining in Sydney fun. It has been my home as sommelier since September 2005. We attract corporate types with business guests to impress, tourists after a quintessentially Sydney experience, and locals coming to relax and let their hair down. Otto’s wine list seeks to cater to this diverse range of needs. It gives me plenty of scope to play.

Wine geeks are on the road. Here’s what we unearthed.

CENTRAL OTAGO
The descent into Queenstown is breathtaking. The snow-capped mountain ranges frame the landing strip and loom ominously close to the plane at times. It is both starkly beautiful and strangely unsettling. It is arid, alpine and tree-less. Frontier country. Badlands.

It has only ever been sparsely populated, attracting a peculiar type. Rugged, independent, outdoorsy. Frontier folk. The first wave arrived back in the 1860s following the discovery of rich alluvial deposits of gold in the Kawarau Gorge.

The second, much later wave is upon us. The world has woken up to this most southerly of regions and its ability to produce wines at home on the biggest of international stages.

Central Otago has arrived. What remains to be seen is whether it will carve itself a permanent niche in the pantheon of the world’s great wine regions. Let’s have a look then.

Matt and I arrived in Queenstown mid afternoon on a flight from Sydney. Andrew had turned up a couple of hours earlier coming from Melbourne. A welcome pack containing a detailed itinerary waited in our rooms following check in. Our days were ordered to a distinct rhythm. Mornings were devoted to regional overviews and tastings. Afternoons were arranged visits to specific wineries. The evenings, an informal meal hosted by a winery. It was an impressive read.

DAY 1
Day one looked straightforward enough with a casual dinner at Peregrine (Kawaru Gorge Rd, Gibbston, 03 442 4000) with a gaggle of winemakers from some of the smaller and newer wineries.

Peregrine’s cellar door and winery is a stunning piece of architectural design. Set dramatically in the steeply sided ravine of Gibbston, its long upswept roof was inspired by the fluttering arc of a peregrine falcon’s wing extended in flight. Beautiful.

However, it was an awkward start. As a trio, we were yet to be properly acquainted, nor did we know what we were in for. We were faced with a room full of winemakers eager for us to sample their wares. So we did what came naturally: we drank. Soon enough gems emerged. Highgate winery of Gibbston had two delicious wines in the 2008 Dreammaker Pinot Gris (N/A) and 2007 Soultaker Pinot Noir (N/A). Here, reds shone brightest. There were many excellent pinot noirs on offer in the form of 2007 Aurum Madeline (A$90/NZ$85), 2007 Prophet’s Rock (A$50/NZ$50) 2009 Lowburn Ferry Home Block (A$45/NZ$46) and the 2009 Doctors Flat (NZ$42). The lack of apostrophe was intentional on Doctors. I discussed this at length with winemaker Steve Davies. He subsequently went to the trouble of scanning and forwarding gold rush era surveyor’s maps of the region to validate his named vineyard’s grammatical eccentricity. He is formerly of Carrick winery and from his single vineyard in Bannockburn, he makes this wine.

DAY 2
The next morning we gathered in the hotel foyer in Queenstown to be greeted by the faultlessly polite Yoshiaki Sato of Mount Edward. Business cards were solemnly traded employing both hands and a simultaneous deferential bow.

Mount Edward’s senior winemaker, Duncan Forsyth, whose business card titles himself as the Big Cheese, was away on his annual pilgrimage to the Burning Man festival in California. With his cheerfully subversive “Jesus Drank Riesling” t-shirts, long sideburns and penchant for wearing snakeskin Cuban-heel boots he cuts a suitably raffish figure. A dude. The two of them must surely make one of winemaking’s great odd couples.

Clearly the pairing works, as the wines on offer were exemplary. The 2009 Mount Edward Riesling (A$38/NZ$25), carrying 16 grams per litre residual sugar, managed to be both full and linear. It is reminiscent of good examples from the Rheingau.

The 2009 Estate Pinot Noir (A$55/NZ$45) is made from a blend of their three vineyards – Stevens’ in Gibbston, Muirkirk on the Felton Road in Bannockburn and Morrison in Lowburn which accounts for the lion’s share of the blend, year in, year out. A small portion from each is reserved for individual-vineyard bottlings. Where the 2009 Mount Edward Stevens’ Vineyard Pinot Noir (A$120/NZ$65) had a distinct herbal delicacy from its cool, marginal location, the 2009 Muirkirk Vineyard (A$120/NZ$65) showed a fleshier, richer disposition typical of Bannockburn. However, it was the 2009 Morrison Vineyard (A$120/NZ$65) which impressed most with its tightly wound but powerful and driving palate.

Not content simply with his day job as Mount Edward’s winemaker, Sato also makes some highly experimental wines under his eponymous label – Sato. There are two pinot noirs, and a wild-fermented, unsulfured 2011 Sato Petillant Naturel Riesling (A$40).
 
We all loved the intensely sapid and highly individual personality of his 2009 Sato l’Insolite Pinot Noir (A$100/NZ$75). It was made using 100 per cent whole bunches that were placed in a sealed tank for seven days of carbonic maceration before undergoing fermentation, which was kicked off by a judicious foot stomp to break the berries’ skins. With no sulphur during winemaking and only a pinch at bottling, it was a rare and edgy cuvée.

The whole-bunch ferment theme was to be taken up again, later that afternoon with Sarah-Kate and Dan Dineen over at Maude winery in Wanaka. Their 2007 Maude Mount Maude Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir (A$65/NZ$55) made using 90 per cent whole bunches was one of the standouts of the tasting. My notes read: “Full, sapid plum skins, slight dustiness but with good persistence. Serious, with real presence.”

The tasting included a vertical of Mount Maude Vineyard Riesling going back to ’99, which highlighted the age-ability of Central Otago riesling. The ’99 was gloriously mature. Deep gold, honeyed and rewardingly persistent. We also tried the very good 2009 Maude Chardonnay (A$40/NZ$30). It had been made by one of their assistant winemakers who had previously spent time working at Domaine Blain-Gagnard in Puligny-Montrachet. Andrew was particularly enamoured of this one.

Sarah-Kate’s parents had bought the property in the tranquil Maungawera Valley, then terraced and planted the original Mount Maude vineyard that now surrounds their home.

Back in 2006 Sarah-Kate returned home from her peregrinations as winemaker in the Hunter Valley, with her husband, Adelaide-bred winemaker, Dan Dineen and their nascent family in tow. There are now two kids and two bottlings under their highly capable stewardship. Those titled Maude, their start-up label, are made using a mix of estate and contract-grower fruit, comprising a pinot gris, a chardonnay and a pinot noir. Those labelled Mount Maude Vineyard represent the reserve range and are made entirely from the original estate plantings. With Dineens at the helm, the future looks bright for Maude. Watch this space.

DAY 3
Day three began with Matt Dicey of Mt Difficulty (73 Felton Rd, Bannockburn, 03 445 3445) collecting us from our overnight motel accommodation in the quiet orchard-fruit town of Cromwell to take us on a tour of the Bannockburn region.

The night before in a Bannockburn pub we’d been given an education in biodynamics by Sam Jary of Quartz Reef and discovered the eminent session-ability of Emerson’s Pilsner and 1812 Pale Ale. The forgettable food was amply compensated by the discovery of these stellar brews. Emerson’s is a brewery from the town of Dunedin on the south-east coast of the South Island. Served in 500ml bottles, these were, hands down, the best beers of the tour. Take the time to track them down.

Dicey, a South African expat, possesses an encyclopaedic understanding of the region, its soils and aspects, and how the terrain was first formed then later altered by humans, following the discovery of gold here in the 1860s. He took us to a lookout on Mt Difficulty’s property. Behind and either side were the gold-rush-sluiced scars of the alluvial pans, while before us stretched the ribbon of Felton Road, which is flanked by Mt Difficulty’s vineyards and those of Olssens, Mount Edward and the eponymous Felton Road winery. Central Otago’s Dress Circle. Côte d’Or-tago. Beyond runs the Kawarau River with the majestic Cromwell Basin framing the background.

It was a good thing that we were getting a handle on how Central Otago breaks down into subregions and what their markers are, as Dicey had arranged a blind tasting of the region’s pinot noirs, presented in subregional brackets. It consisted of 27 wines drawn respectively from the subregions of Wanaka, Gibbston, Lowburn/Cromwell, Pisa Ranges, Bendigo, Bannockburn and Alexandra. Those from Wanaka and Gibbston clearly had a spicier, more highly strung quality due to their cooler, more-marginal climates. From the other subregions, it was a matter of subtler shadings but still built on hefty frames. Central Otago pinot noirs are powerful wines. The region’s protected southern latitude, long summer days and cool nights combine with its arid continental climate to allow long hang time with virtually no disease pressure. The result is ripe and healthy fruit that has the acidity to carry the flesh. While the nuances of the sub-regions weren’t to be so easily defined, there was a clear regional stamp. It is its own beast. It is as unique, regionally distinctive and internationally marketable as Brand Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

The final words before leaving Otago are saved for Grant Taylor, who presented us with the tour’s most unorthodox tasting. He was our wheels for the 45 minute drive from Mt Difficulty to Queenstown airport, from where we were flying to Christchurch. Taylor is one of the region’s pioneers. He has been involved from Otago’s earliest days at Gibbston Valley Estate and lately under his own label, Valli. With his thick, tightly curled grey hair, expressively jutting eyebrow and mischievous darting eyes, he is a human incarnation of the Aardman Animations character, Shaun the Sheep. There’s an air about him of being up for mischief, should it present itself. He’d packed a selection of 375ml sample bottles and some tasting glasses in the hope we’d be up for a mobile tutored tasting as we wound our way toward Queenstown. We were. We tried all three of his excellent subregional pinot noirs: the 2009 Valli Gibbston Vineyard (A$62/NZ$55), 2009 Valli Bannockburn Vineyard (A$62/NZ$55), and 2009 Valli Waitaki Vineyard (A$62/NZ$55), but it was a sample of a yet-to-be-released Gibbston riesling that floored us. My staccato note on the 2011 Valli Dolce Vita Late Harvest (NZ$45) reads: “163 grams per litre residual sugar, 10.3 grams acid, Lowburn, botrytis, 9.5 per cent abv. Bloody Gorgeous!”

WAIPARA VALLEY
Our day’s tasting had not ended with our roadies in Grant Taylor’s company. We weren’t even halfway through. We were greeted at Christchurch airport by Benjamin Coles of The Crater Rim winery. He was to take us to our hosts for the evening, Matt and Lynette Donaldson of Pegasus Bay Winery. Coles had a detour in mind. A tasting at The Crater Rim over in Omihi (1226 Omihi Rd, Omihi, Nth Canterbury, 27 442 2027). We were greeted there by his cousin and winemaker, Theo Coles, who took us on a whistle-stop tasting tour of what they do.

The Crater Rim takes its name from the circular geographical feature of Banks Peninsula which sits just south of Christchurch. It was formed by two large volcanoes between eight and 10 million years ago. Benjamin was keen to impress on us that all this seismic activity has created a great diversity of soil, topography and microclimates in the Canterbury and Waipara Valley regions. It is their intention to explore these subregional differences. Having spent time working in Burgundy, Coles has adopted the negociant model of working closely with a number of different growers to craft a series of micro cuvées from the subregions of Akaroa, Waipara, Burnham and Omihi.

Though they made an unexpectedly good Northern Rhône doppelgänger from a syrah vineyard in Waipara, it is pinot noir that is their main vehicle. The yet-to-be released 2010 The Crater Rim Lot 7 Pinot Noir, which comes from a single parcel within their Omihi Rise vineyard, was my pick. The wine was as black as the ace of spades, with highly perfumed floral aromatics and muscular tannins. It was sanguine, ferrous and complete. 

Our late arrival at Pegasus Bay (Stockgrove Rd, Waipara, 03 314 6869) meant we were in for a long night. The Donaldson family are renowned for their warm hospitality, often entertaining to the wee hours. Lynette dispatched Benjamin with a withering stare. Time was wasting. A private dinner in the excellent estate restaurant beckoned. But first we had a tasting to do.

Pegasus Bay have long been the undisputed standard bearer for the Waipara Valley wine region. The rapid-fire tasting, drawn from their impressively well-resourced museum stock, amply confirmed just why. We tasted multiple vintages of the majority of their bottlings, ranging from those under the Main Divide label through to their top cuvées. Sauvignon blanc, riesling, gewürz-traminer, chardonnay and pinot noir were represented. Their style across the board is ripe, powerful and richly flavoured, yet always in balance. The 2009 Pegasus Bay Riesling (A$38/NZ$28) was my favourite. It is an absolute belter. Lush and unashamedly big boned, the tasting also demonstrated that it rewards patience in the cellar.

DAY 4
The following morning Andrew exercised his barista skills, kicking us off with strong coffees made on the restaurant’s espresso machine. Arranged by Angela Clifford, the newly appointed marketing director for the Waipara Valley Winegrowers, the morning tasting was presented blind and divided by variety and subregion. It highlighted that Waipara Valley is producing some superb pinot noir and is fairly handy with riesling. The sweeter Germanic styles of riesling, such as the clove-spice accented 2010 Waipara Hills Equinox Riesling (NZ$27), were something of a regional speciality. Our cousins from across the ditch clearly have a liking for fruitier whites. To my mind, they were the more successful, while Matt preferred the drier styles, like the 2010 Muddy Waters Dry Riesling (A$27/NZ$28). The tasting also unearthed one particularly stellar red in the 2008 Mountford Vineyard The Gradient Pinot Noir. We were unanimous on this one. With its intoxicating yellow plum aromatics, and ample, ripe palate tapering into sapid astringency, it was a serious and sexy wine.

There was a further surprise for us before we left the region, and it was to be one of the great revelations of the trip. If there was a winery on this tour that best exemplified the maxim that small is beautiful, then Bell Hill (Old Weka Pass Road, North Canterbury, 03 3794 374) is it. Situated in an isolated location, on the Old Weka Pass Road, 70-odd kilometres north of Christchurch, it demonstrates what is possible through the single-minded pursuit of excellence.

The vineyard is set on the north face of Bell Hill, from which the winery takes its name. It was a limestone quarry in the 1920s, and they have planted two hectares to pinot noir and chardonnay, plus a small plot of riesling at a density of 9000 to 11,000 vines per hectare. The first plantings were made in 1997. The initial vintage in 1999. They’re trellised with a low-fruiting wire, to which is trained a single cordon per trunk. The tight spacing forces the vines to work hard, thereby reducing vigour and crop levels. It also precludes the use of heavy machinery, meaning unending hours of back-breaking manual work are required to achieve the miniscule yield per vine that they are after. The Bell Hill vineyard is an unapologetic homage to grand-cru Burgundy. It is Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen’s labour of love. Their folly.

Though they are biodynamic in their practices and do not use herbicides or systemic fungicides, these can’t be considered natural wines. As they state on their website: “The management of the vineyard is very traditional and we consider the high level of human input as being very influential in achieving this site’s potential.”

The 2011 Bell Hill Chardonnay (N/A), tasted from barrel, wowed us all. Fine boned and intense, the layered palate kept opening with grapefruit, oyster shell, white nectarine, coriander and fennel notes. I got even more carried away by the current release 2008 Chardonnay  (A$140/NZ$75) for which I wrote “Raveneau Les Clos, anybody?”

The pinot noirs were equally impressive. There were two: 2008 Bell Hill (A$160/NZ$95) and 2008 Bell Hill Old Weka Pass Road (A$100/NZ$45), which is their young-vine cuvée. Properly vinous, they were neither about fruit or oak or artifice. They were silken, mineral expressions of a place, of a vision realised.

DAY 5: MARLBOROUGH
Day five of the tour saw a 6am departure from our motel accommodation in Kaikoura in an effort to make the Marlborough regional tasting scheduled for 9.30am at Seresin Estate in the Wairau Valley (85 Bereford Rd, Renwick, 03 572 9408). The morning air was crisp, clear and cold as we bundled into the hire car with coffees from a roadside caravan cafe. The sun’s first rays reflected off the snow-capped mountains to the west as we headed north toward Marlborough. The highway closely hugs the coast here, sinuously threading along the shoreline. It was a beautiful vista and one of my enduring memories of being on the road. Even by the standards of the South Island, which is uniquely blessed with superb alpine landscape, this was special.

Our host for the Marlborough regional tasting was Seresin’s winemaker, the ever affable and iconoclastic Clive Dougall. Yet another expat Englishman, he was happy to provide plenty of cheeky and subversive commentary throughout the tasting, telling us which wines to try and whose not to bother with.

These morning regional tastings were a feature of our tour, and a great way to get a clear snapshot of what the region was doing. On this occasion, we had some 45 wines to sample, with everything divided into varietal categories. Naturally enough, sauvignon blanc was on show, with styles ranging from the highly herbaceous and pungent through to the powerful and heavily worked. The most successful examples clearly yet subtly articulated their Marlborough origins, underpinning them with taut minerality.

Greywacke and Seresin were both notable in that respect.

Of all the regions we were to visit, it was Marlborough that yielded the most surprises and so comprehensively debunked our prejudices. With over 23,600 hectares under vine and more than two thirds of the national crush, Marlborough is the engine room that drives the New Zealand wine industry. This from a region with only 44,000 people, a mere 1 per cent of New Zealand’s population. The runaway international success of Brand Marlborough sauvignon blanc is a double-edged sword. Consumers love it for its affordability, recognisability and reliability. Sommeliers loathe it for its obviousness and ubiquity. All three of us had come with preconceived ideas. Where we dreaded a sea of undistinguished manufactured bilge, the caricature of our imagining, we instead found a plethora of artisanal wines of the highest quality. Just the ticket for we professional wine tragics.

First and foremost among the makers of these are Hans and Therese Herzog of Hans Herzog Wines (81 Jeffries Rd, Blenheim, 03 572 8770), who were our hosts for our only night in Marlborough. With their swank Estate restaurant closed for the low season, we were treated to a superb paella laced with saffron, as prepared by Hans and served in their home alongside a selection of his wines. With the irrepressible Therese regaling us with stories of their former life in Switzerland, the unassuming Hans stood in the background and exercised a deft hand in the kitchen. It was the gastronomic high watermark of the entire trip.

Hans is clearly capable with a wide range of wine styles. Of the many varieties planted in their vineyard, we sampled arneis, grüner veltliner, riesling, gewürztraminer, viognier, chardonnay (both a dry and a botrytis version), sauvignon blanc, zweigelt, tempranillo, nebbiolo and pinot noir, as well as a Spirit of Marlborough blend. Each of these micro cuvées were, without exception, balanced, harmonious and beautifully expressive of their variety and style.

Many of the producers we visited had a healthy understanding of what is happening in the Old World. And plenty of them love Burgundy. It was refreshing, then, to meet two producers who instead draw inspiration from the Loire. Their wines were all the better for it.

Sam Weaver has been making wine in Marlborough since 1989. Born into a Shropshire (UK) farming family, he’s had a diverse career both as a fine-wine merchant and winemaker, developing a close friendship with the late Didier Dagueneau, before he and wife Mandy moved to New Zealand. Together, they established Churton in 1997.

Like all the quality-obsessed producers we visited, a tour of the vineyard was mandatory before tasting any of their wines. The Weavers are firm believers in the mantra that great wine is only possible when you get it right in the vineyard. Theirs is situated on rolling land that drops off abruptly to the banks of the Waihopai river, its shape is both undulating and ordered. In plan the vineyard resembles a side of beef. The names of the various plots reflect this with memorable titles like topside, neck, skirt, loin and rump.

It is planted primarily to sauvignon blanc and pinot noir with smaller and much more recent parcels of viognier and petit manseng. Despite an out-of-the-box 2010 Viognier and a some mighty fine pinot noir, it was the sauvignon blanc which was the star of the tasting, clearly reflecting Sam’s love for Dagueneau’s wines. My notes on the 2009 Churton Sauvignon Blanc (A$30/NZ$26) read: “Lemon curd, subtle aromatics, bone dry, green pea and flint. Weighty and powerful. Classic Sancerre in style. A world away from the Marlborough norm.”

We were collected from Churton by Damien Yvon, head winemaker of Clos Henri, who treated us to some fine Gallic hospitality.

Wholly owned and operated by Domaine Henri Bourgeois, Clos Henri is the Southern Hemisphere outpost of this giant of the Loire Valley. They had spent years looking for a suitable site in the New World to plant their little corner of Sancerre, before deciding on Marlborough’s Wairau Valley. Their philosophy, as Damien explained, is that they are here for the long haul and they only intended to build the facilities once. The recently constructed winery is a model of well-thought-through design. Constructed in the centre of their holdings, it ensures that all their hand-harvested, estate-grown fruit, even from the furthest vineyard, is no more than five minutes from the winery.
This Sancerre influence is extended clearly into the wines.

It was a fact that Matt picked up on quickly with the reds in particular. He commented on how their bright, crunchy cranberry and raspberry characters were such a clear echo of their Sancerre rouge counterparts.

Combining their taut, mineral whites and beautifully high-toned pinot noirs with a rustic lunch spread, including crusty baguettes, pheasant terrine, Crotin de Chavignol cheese and charcuterie made by Damien himself, the effect was parfait.

We were no sooner tucking in than we were joined by our host for our final visit. Will Hoare, Fromm La Strada’s assistant winemaker, rolled up in his much-used, short-wheel-base Land Rover Defender. We devoured a slice of Damien’s simple and delicious home-made apple flan before clambering aboard. Matt rode shotgun. Will suggested a spot of clay-pigeon shooting, time permitting, following the tasting. I kid you not. There wasn’t enough space for our luggage as well. We were to fly from Blenheim to Auckland immediately following this visit, so Damien arranged to have our luggage sent straight to the airport while Will drove us out to have a look at one of Marlborough’s most-famous vineyards, the Clayvin at Fromm Winery (Godfrey Rd, RD2 Blenheim, 03 572 9355).

The Clayvin vineyard was planted in 1991 by Mike Eaton, who subsequently went on to establish the equally excellent Terravin in the Waihopai Valley. It was the first vineyard in the region to be close-planted in the Burgundian tradition with squat trunks and a single cordon trained upon a low-fruiting wire. It was a genius choice of site and planting method. A pointer to the future. My notes on the 2008 Fromm Clayvin Vineyard Pinot Noir (A$78/NZ$63, sold out) speak of it being silken, sapid and stony yet with great line and fine texture.

Serious wine. It was all about the vineyard.

In his laconic and self-deprecating country-boy style, Will made sure to discuss their commitment to organic and sustainable practices in the vineyard and winery. To that end, Fromm Winery is a member of a loose group of Marlborough producers who have pooled their resources to jointly make and share a number of preparations used in organic and biodynamic viticulture. Called Manna, the group includes Te Whare Rua, Hans Herzog and Seresin among others. It is a terrific co-operative initiative.

Hätsch Kalberer, the Swiss born chief winemaker and joint founder of Fromm joined Will and ourselves at the winery following a look around. With his extravagantly handle-barred moustache and coarse, greying mullet, he looked like a cross between Catweazel and Wolverine. His manner was considered and reserved. He led us through a tasting of their wares. The wines were excellent across the board, but it was the 2009 Fromm Fromm Vineyard Syrah (NZ$49) that stole the show, confounding us all. A syrah so powerful and complete as this one has no right to come from a place with no track record for it.

Sadly there was no time left to blast clay pigeons with buck shot. A tiny 16-seater plane waited at Blenheim airport. It would deliver us to Auckland by early evening, for a night left to our own devices. The view from the air as we ascended from Blenheim drew what we had just experienced into sharp relief. As far as the eye could see, every square metre of the Wairau Valley floor that was not covered by either a building or a road, had a vine planted on it.

DAY 6: WAIHEKE ISLAND
Having enjoyed a night off in Auckland, it was time to get back on the road, or in this case, the ferry. We were headed for Waiheke Island, 17 kilometres away. Our hosts for the night were to be the rugby-mad men of Man O’War.

Beautiful vineyards in stunning settings had been sighted so frequently on our trip as to become commonplace. Somewhat spoilt by this late stage of the journey, nothing could have prepared us for the raw ocean-bound splendour of Waiheke Island seen in the light of day. The island terrain rolls and folds like a roughly rumpled sheet of green felt. Its frayed edges trail off into water of the clearest blue. Exquisite.

While not the only winery on the island, Man O’War (Man O’War Rd, RD1, Waiheke Island, 09 303 9670) was the only one we visited. We had heard about other famous producers on the island, such as Mud House, Goldwater, Obsidian, Kennedy Point and Stonyridge Vineyard. It was a shame not to be able to get more of a regional overview, but with Man O’War’s sales manager, the bubbly and irrepressible Bronwyn Skuse, running the show, what we did see certainly impressed.

The Spencer family, who own Man O’War, are the island’s biggest private landholders. Their holding comprises some 4500 contiguous acres on the north-east corner of the island. That’s roughly one quarter of the island’s entire landmass. Of that, 150 acres are planted to vines. These are spread across 90 individual plots scattered around the property. Resident rugby nut and vineyard manager, Matt Allen, has the job of keeping tabs on this complex puzzle of tiny plots. He gave us the tour. Their focus is on the classic white and red Bordeaux varieties, along with some smaller plantings of chardonnay and viognier. They also have a pinot gris vineyard on neighbouring Ponui Island. At
harvest, the fruit is sent across to the winery by punt at high tide.

As Matt explained, they chase finesse with the reds, so these varieties are planted on steeply raked and sheltered slopes, while the whites are on exposed volcanic hilltops to maximise fruit expression.

First planted in 1993, it took years of trialling many varieties in different locations, until they got a feel for what worked best where. It was time and money well spent. Major plantings went in between 2002 and 2006, with 2006 being their first commercial vintage.

Production now hovers around 20,000 cases a year, with that number set to increase as younger vineyards come on stream.

In its early days, Man O’War winery was named Stony Batter after a prominent gun installation that had been constructed on the property to act as a first line of defence against a feared Japanese naval invasion of Auckland. No attack ever eventuated. To those unfamiliar with military terms, the name Stony Batter is confusing, as it conjures images of rocks being deep fried. It was wisely decided to change the name to the more macho and evocative Man O’War. The name is a reference to Captain James Cook who on sighting the giant Kauri trees that dot the island had noted that these magnificent specimens would be perfect to serve as masts on his man o’war battleships.
 
The military and naval references continue into the names of the wines, with their two flagship reds having the evocative titles of Dreadnought and Ironclad. Respectively, they are a syrah and a Bordeaux-style blend. Unlike we Australians, Kiwis aren’t as hung up about varietal labelling. They keep their options open come blending time by favouring memorable and evocative titles for their top wines.

Apart from the Spirit of Marlborough, from Hans Herzog, the Ironclad was the first serious Bordeaux-style blend we’d tried on the tour. Many more were yet to follow in Hawkes Bay. My notes have this merlot, cabernet franc and malbec blend as being a very good, medium-bodied Right Bank look-a-like with Blood plum characters on a savoury palate. If this was any indication as to the quality of wines possible from their region then it should be on the list of destinations for anyone seeking classically structured, elegant reds.

With the Australia vs Ireland rugby match scheduled for that night in Auckland and all of us keen to soak up some of the carnival atmosphere of the World Cup, our short stay on Waiheke Island had come to a close.

DAY 7: HAWKES BAY
On the home-straight now, we’d reached the final region in our condensed Grand Tour of New Zealand: Hawkes Bay. Our suitcases bulged with dirty laundry, while our waistlines bulged from the excess of food and wine. It was not long before we could return to normality and a good night’s sleep in our own beds. Still, we had really been looking forward to this stage. None of us had been to Hawkes Bay previously. After so much pinot noir and sauvignon blanc, we’d come to cabernet, syrah and chardonnay territory. As Australians, we are accustomed to believing we know a thing or two about these varieties. So how good could New Zealand’s be?

Hawkes Bay is New Zealand’s oldest wine region. Two wineries, Mission Estate and Te Mata, both established in the second half of the 1800s, lay competing claims to being the elder statesman. It is a large crescent-shaped bay that forms the arch of the foot that is the North Island and spans some 350 kilometres of Pacific Ocean coastline. It is ringed by mountains which moderate the climate. These mountains also feed the five rivers whose combined deltas create the alluvial deposits that form the soil of the valley floor. The closer you are to the coast, the finer and siltier the alluvial deposits become. It is suitable for orchard fruit, but not for vines. You need to travel further inland for them, where the coarser and deeper gravels are found. This is the home to New Zealand’s first officially recognised GI, the Gimblett Gravels. While it’s not the only designated subregion, it is the most famous. Bottles bearing its stamp are guaranteed to have come from vineyards planted in these deep, free-draining alluvial gravels that were formed over millennia by the changing course of the Ngaruroro River. Combined with their proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the provide the perfect milieu for producing fine claret. Many of the region’s best estates cluster upon this highly prized gravels.

The international marketing success of the Gimblett Gravels GI is something of a sticking point for Peter Cowley of Te Mata. Their top wine, the Coleraine, is arguably one of Hawkes Bay’s finest Bordeaux-style blends and vies for the crown of New Zealand’s top red wine. It doesn’t come from this GI but from the Havelock North Hills, south of the town of Hastings. The 2009 is a statuesque wine with tremendous structure. It’s finely textured and has abundant tannins built into a medium-bodied frame. It’s a contemporary classic.

It wasn’t the only wine to demonstrate that we Australians can’t be too complacent about the quality of our cabernet blends. Those from Trinity Hill (2396 State Hwy 50, Hastings, 06 879 7778) were also very good and offered great value. As a refreshing luncheon claret, their white label merlot, cab sav and cab franc blend 2009 The Trinity (A$22/NZ$19) is peerless. The volume is turned up in their black labelled top-tier blend, 2008 The Gimblett (A$35/NZ$34), which comes exclusively from estate vineyards planted on the Gimblett Gravels. It was a harmonious wine brimming with violets, cassis, turned earth and cigar-box characters. Bullseye Bordelais.

Clearly, Hawkes Bay is capable of producing exquisite claret, Gimblett Gravels or not.

There were more surprises in store for us with our last regional tasting, hosted by the Hawkes Bay Winegrowers. It was held at the Opera House in Hastings and our tasting room was overlooked by the surreal effigy of a colossal waving Santa painted in the All Blacks stripe, standing on the roof of a petrol station. There was a fabulously aromatic, unctuous and expressive 2009 Stonecroft Gewürztraminer (NZ$25). It was opulent yet firmly corseted. More exotic still was the 2008 Bilancia La Collina White (A$45/NZ$40) that was made from an 85/15 blend of viognier and gewürztraminer. Musky, floral and richly textured with long tapering acidity, it brought to mind the opulent Friulian white blends of Jermann. Next came a bevy of fine chardonnays, with the best delineated by a finely mineral acid backbone reminiscent of Chablis. The 2010 Sileni Estate The Lodge (NZ$28) was my pick. Its balanced citrus- and mineral-dominant palate offered up grapefruit, nectarine, chalk and nougat notes, nimbly treading that fine line between austerity and complexity.

That leaves us, finally, with syrah. A poignant variety with which to conclude our tour. Based on figures from the 2011 vintage, syrah constitutes a mere four per cent of the harvest for Hawkes Bay, which accounts for 84 per cent of New Zealand’s total for the variety. That’s a shade over 1000 tonnes crushed in 2011. These tiny volumes aren’t going to make Australian producers quake in their boots, but the quality that is on offer certainly should. Hawkes Bay is ideally placed to take advantage of the current shift in consumer tastes away from high-impact, trophy wines toward more perfumed and finely structured styles. From shiraz to syrah.

There were some delightfully seamless and suave syrah in the form of the 2009 Trinity Hill Homage (NZ$120), 2009 Ash Ridge (A$35/NZ$23) and 2009 Craggy Range Le Sol (A$120/NZ$100). Then came  some equally alluring but more tightly wound examples such as the 2010 Alpha Domus Barnstormer (sold out) and the 2007 Vidal Reserve Syrah (NZ$29) that were defined by tart Blood-plum characters and higher-toned violet and white-pepper notes.

Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, it was a rare and idiosyncratic single-vineyard syrah that entranced we three wine tragics the most. As its name suggests, the 2008 Bilancia La Collina Syrah (NZ$80) comes from a steep hillside vineyard. The Italian moniker is a nod to winemaker Warren Gibson’s time spent working in southern Italy. The northern exposure of the terraced site combined with the competition from the uncultivated ground-cover limits vigour to a kilogram per vine. Even in a big vintage, production peaks at around 220 cases.

What you end up with is a chewy, deeply earthen, finely spiced and monumentally structured syrah with a fine acid backbone. It is quite superb. Like so many of the lovely wines we had uncovered on this tour, it clearly articulated its unique sense of place and the desire of its maker to craft great wine.

Yes, small is indeed beautiful. Thank you New Zealand.

WORDS PATRICK WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY CLOS HENRI

This article was published in the February/March 2012 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.