Many wine consumers in the world may have the perception that New Zealand is a monolithic wine-producing country because almost 90 percent of its export output is off-dry sauvignon blanc. But they need to understand how diverse and different the world of wine is on this island nation, and recent vintages are clearly illustrating this.
Take the harvest in March and April this year as an example. The North Island had one if its wettest grape-growing seasons ever, with literally more than a thousand millimeters of rain in many areas, and a terrible cyclone devastated regions like Hawkes Bay. Meanwhile, the South Island had slightly above normal rainfall, and many producers call 2023 an “excellent vintage.”
“We are very happy with the quality of 2023,” said Blair Walter, the head winemaker at Felton Road, the famous winery in Central Otago known for great single-vineyard pinot noir and excellent quality chardonnay and riesling. “It’s early days. I try not to get ahead of them. But what I am excited about is when we have a slightly wetter vintage like 2023, we will have exotic character in the wine.”
It seems the South Island has had four very good to outstanding quality vintages in a row. It has been more difficult for the North Island, which I can personally attest to from my experience in my small vineyard. A neighbor called the March harvest In Martinborough the wettest and most difficult in decades.
“There is such a difference between the North and South Islands,” said Nick Mills, whose family owns Rippon Vineyard on the shores of Lake Wanaka, about an hour’s drive from Queenstown, South Island. He makes some of the most impressive terroir-driven pinots in the country. “People forget that. If you flip New Zealand over like the northern hemisphere, the north of New Zealand would be at the tip of North Africa while the South would be in Germany.”
This may be a slight overstatement of how weather patterns and soils differ in New Zealand’s wine area, but it makes a solid visual point of the vast differences. Just comparing Central Otago with Martinborough is like comparing mountainous, agricultural areas in Wyoming or Utah to the plains of aggie land in the Central Coast of California. Yet, this is what makes New Zealand so unique and exciting as a wine country, and its top wines have purity and character.
Added Mills, “It’s ridiculous to generalize about New Zealand. The biggest part of New Zealand is maritime climate, but we are continental. We are hot and dry, and our vineyards are on schist.”
OLD-SCHOOL DEDICATION
This year I rated nearly 700 wines, mostly during two trips to New Zealand, and I was impressed with so many of them. Granted, I don’t taste rows of inexpensive, commercial-quality wines that end up in supermarkets in the world and that are farmed and produced in a mostly agro-industrial way. I focus primarily on well-known names with well-kept vineyards as well as under-the-radar local gems. And the viticulturists and winemakers are as dedicated to their craft just like others in more traditional countries such as France, Italy, and Spain.
“We do everything ourselves, including the vineyard work as well as the winemaking,” said Yoshiaki Sato, who with his wife, Kyoko, operate their family-owned winery of five hectares of vineyards on the hillsides of Mount Pisa in Central Otago. They remind me of tiny vineyardists in Burgundy or the Loire Valley. Their pinots are thoughtful and transparent as well as their chardonnay, chenin blanc, cabernet franc and gamay. “We don’t trust anyone to do the work the way we want it,” Sato said. “We feel better doing it ourselves for the moment.”
Like the Satos, there are a lot of characters in the New Zealand wine world making delicious wines. It makes it all the more difficult to generalize about the top echelon of winemaking other than observing that the best wines are coming from the best viticulturists/winemakers who have the ability to tame Mother Nature and grow the best quality grapes. They also make the most balanced and focused wines. Almost all the top names in New Zealand winemaking seem to be following the trend toward producing wines with more precision, balance and drinkability and less opulence, density and tannins.
“Everyone has pulled back on winemaking, and everyone has more confidence that we don’t need to copy anyone,” said Austin Black a winemaker with Prophet’s Rock, in the Bendigo area of Central Otago. “And we want to make something that really shows our vineyards… We are always trying to be as soft and as gentle as we can because Bendigo is known for tannic wines. It is to take winemaking out of it and show clarity of site. You see the differences in sites exposed.”
Many wines of excellent quality now on the market or coming to the market from New Zealand show this clarity and site specificity. Yes, it is partially because of better viticulture practices and winemaking, but it’s also because the vintages on the market, such as 2020, 2021 and 2022, made some outstanding-quality wines.
I have already written about how 2021 could turn out to be better than the highly touted 2020 because the wines have a slightly more linear and tense structure and mouthfeel. But few can deny the beauty and sexiness of the wines in 2020, particularly top reds.
And then there’s 2022. What I have tasted from barrel shows promise in all regions. For example, the single-vineyard chardonnays from Kumeu River are pretty sensational. But it’s most likely not going to be a top year for any particular region, although some great wines are going to be produced. I will be in New Zealand to taste more at the end of the year. Stay tuned.
– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman
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