Vintage punctuates our year. In a good way. It’s late summer leading into autumn, we’re watching the weather by the hour and gearing up to pick. The days will be shorter and cooler when we emerge out the other side with another year’s toil in the tanks.

With many a good story to share and many healthy appetites among us, we decided to team up with restaurateur Michael Dearth and Sierra Reed, to film the harvest at each of the twelve family wineries.

The result is (oddly enough) a TV series called ‘Harvest’ where Michael cooks lunch for the hungry harvest crew and Sierra goes exploring behind the scenes at the wineries.

You can watch all six episodes on Air New Zealand’s Inflight entertainment or occasionally on Prime TV in NZ. In the meantime, here’s a short clip …

A blog post from Nigel Greening

I wrote this piece a few months ago on ecosystems and have been wondering what to do with it. If you read it, consider this: the world is an ecosystem and global warming is a non-linear process. Everybody talks about it, and what we do or don’t do about it. Well here’s a twopenniworth from a concerned grape grower.

For a long time people thought about nature as being a system which had a “natural balance”. Nature was some sort of divine management system conducted by, depending on your philosophy, an outside intelligence or by the sheer mathematics that underlie Darwinian thought.

In the last few decades a clearer understanding has emerged. It may be clearer, but it is far more difficult to grasp, so this progress has largely been ignored by those outside the scientific community.
Now global warming, climate change, sustainability, a whole raft of major issues, are entering the public arena and the ability to properly understand the system is suddenly becoming very important. So here goes, and by the way, if you can’t understand any of this, don’t worry, that just means you are probably getting it right, reality can be pretty strange at times.

This is about a very difficult area of mathematics. For a while it didn’t have a name (but was often viewed as a part of a branch of mathematics called topology). Then as people started to seriously explore it, it acquired a name: chaos theory. As understanding grew it became clear that the word chaos was a very bad description of what was being discovered; this was something that was anything but chaotic. Today it is known as “complexity theory”.

Who cares about maths? Only mathematicians, and we aren’t going to go near the maths of all this, which, believe me, is seriously scary stuff. The point is that all of this is not some random process nobody understands. It is governed absolutely by mathematics and maths doesn’t require you to understand it for it to work: four pregnant rabbits each giving birth to three rabbits results in 12 baby rabbits and did so long before anybody knew how to multiply.

So what does drive ecosystems? (Or climate, for that matter since both are governed by the same maths principles.)

Ecosystems are “non-linear” systems. A system is usually non-linear when more than one factor mutually affects other factors. The mutual bit is the important part as it results in a “feedback loop”. For example: wolves eat deer. The more wolves, the more deer get eaten, so the less deer there are to breed, so the fewer deer there are to eat, so the less wolves have to eat, so the fewer wolves, so less deer get eaten….you get the idea: any change to one side changes the other side, which in turn changes the first side, which again changes the second and so on for ever. It looks like a cycle, but it isn’t. Ever.

Non-linear systems turn up all over the natural world. For a very long time it was assumed that this was just normal mathematics, but nobody could ever figure out equations that could solve it. Insights into the maths have happened over the last 100 years but they were just glimpses of stuff so horrifically anarchic that the term chaos was eventually coined to describe their behaviour. It took big computers to pick the stuff apart enough to understand there is nothing chaotic at all: rather an incredible world of structure of literally infinite detail. Run non-linear models through computers and you see wonderful images of great beauty, images that often look uncannily like natural living things.

All well and good, but what does this tell us about the world about us. More important what advice can it impart?

There are some very important messages:

1. Non-linear systems are inherently not predictable.
   That doesn’t mean they are hard to predict, or we don’t know how to predict them, it means it is an intrinsic property of them that they can never be predicted. You could come back in a thousand years to a hugely advanced society (hopefully) and just as two and two will still equal four, non-linear systems will still be not predictable.
2. Non-linear systems never return to the same point twice.
   Again, this isn’t just that there are so many points they are unlikely to go back: they cannot go back. That is an unbreakable law of non-linearity. This means nature cannot be cyclical: there cannot ever be a cycle, simply a return to a similar but not identical state. The most important factor here is that if a system is at a point very close to a previous point (let’s call it A) and the last time the system progressed from there to a point B that is no indicator that this time around it will move to a point close to point B. It can and probably will do something completely different.
3. Non-linear systems normally move around an attractor.
   This one is tougher. What is an “attractor”? Answer, it is the thing the system moves around. No more than that. It isn’t actually a thing, it has no existence of itself, it is a point of mathematical harmony which these staggeringly difficult equations seem to enjoy hovering around, just as bees like certain flowers. This a critical difference between something chaotic, which would be non predictable and have no pattern, and something complex, which is non-predictable, but has a very profound and exact pattern. This an interesting dilemma: here is something that is anything but random, that is, in fact, very highly ordered, but is absolutely unpredictable. Weird stuff.
4. Non-linear systems can be “knocked off” an attractor with radical consequences.
   Sometimes one can make quite a large change to a non-linear function, but it still continues to settle back around its attractor. On other occasions, the smallest interference can cause a system to leave its attractor. When this happens, if a system leaves its attractor the effects are both very dramatic and irreversible. They are, as we’ve mentioned before, also unknowable.
5. Just as the system is inherently unpredictable, one cannot predict which changes to a system will have radical results.

So there’s no point in asking what actions are the dangerous ones: we don’t know and we cannot know.

Here we have a problem. If we don’t know and cannot know what actions are the dangerous ones, how on earth do we create a strategy for sustainability? Isn’t this a charter for people to say that the maths proves that there is no point in taking action? Or, for that matter, no point in worrying about changes that affect the non-linear systems that drive almost all the aspects of the world about us. This is out of our hands and out of our sphere of knowledge.

These things are true, but that doesn’t mean we can’t build a sound strategy from the knowledge we do have.

Which brings us to:

Throwing stones at a train.

You find out your child has been throwing stones at trains as they go past. You tell them it is dangerous to do that.

“But Tommy throws stones at trains.”
“Tommy shouldn’t; it’s dangerous.”
“But nothing’s happened.”
“But if you keep on doing it, something bad will happen.”
“How many stones can I throw before it’s dangerous.”
“It doesn’t work like that, just one stone could do it.”
“How big do they have to be to be dangerous?”
“It doesn’t work like that, a tiny one could do it.”
“How do you know which one is the dangerous one?”
“You can’t.”
“So how do you know it’s dangerous, then?”

It can be hard to explain that without any ability to predict, while the future is unknowable, there is nevertheless an ever growing chance that one day one of those stones will hit a microscopic flaw in a windscreen, a slice of glass will go through the drivers eye, and in a terrible microsecond the system leaves its attractor, never to return.

So, a strategy:

• You’re not trying to go back.
• You’re not trying to keep things as they are.
• You’re not trying to keep a cycle going.
• You’re not trying to tell the future.

You are just trying not to throw stones at the trains as they go past.

An occasional blog post from Nigel Greening.

I spent a pleasing day recently with Professor Warren Morran, who is close to completing his book on terroir. For those who don’t know this internationally acclaimed thinker, he takes a very broad view of the nature of terroir, arguing that as the very nature of a vineyard is a human construct, the various human interventions that comprise the terroir, including its history, its management… in fact every way that human influence impinges on the site… are important factors to include in order to properly understand how terroir works.

We spent the day discussing a huge range of influences as we wandered around our vineyards, raising far more questions than we resolved, as is the way with any interesting subject.

My last piece looked at how wild yeasts form a part of terroir, this time, I’m turning to history both old and recent, and how events both influence and create terroir.

James Millton, perhaps not surprisingly, turns first to the ecosystems of the soil when I ask him for a thought on this. As a biodynamic grower, the dynamic living systems of the soil underpin a great deal of his thinking.

Although most biodynamic growers try hard to create composts and preparations that are grown within the terroir of the vineyard, or adjacent to it, the human act of combining them, of building organic matter and energy in the soils is very much a human intervention. So James can trace an important thread of his terroir back to Germany in the 1920’s when Rudolph Steiner made his eight presentations on thoughts for a new kind of agriculture.

He is very keen to get a greater understanding of what is happening at a chemical level within these soils: studying the cation exchange and also looking to see if there might be a correlation between organic and biodynamic farming and resveratrol levels in red wines. Although many see biodynamics as a rather spiritual and insubstantial concept, those that practice it are undoubting that the changes are both real and substantial.

If the human influence is undoubted, what about the canine influence? Can the winery dog influence terroir? I think it might do. For example, dogs encourage us to walk around our land and to spend more time amongst our vines than we might otherwise do. This probably makes us better viticulturists, as we observe our vines more often and more closely. There is certainly a close relationship between dogs and good wineries, none more so than Palliser, who have a wine named after Bear: their now deceased Labrador.

Many family members tell stories of a very important principle: it takes special land to make special wines. The traditional way to buy land has always been to find something that was for sale then buy it, but most of us have, at some point, realised that it really should be done the other way: find something that is just right, then persuade the owner to sell it. That is how Pegasus Bay found their patch of glacial moraine. Moraine soils seem to be very effective, as they combine stones and rocks of various sizes with fine silts crushed by the ice. As the silts are freshly crushed by the glacier, they will tend to leach large amounts of minerals compared to soils that have been drained for countless thousands of years. The result is a great mixture of heavier textures with free draining larger material. Not unlike Burgundy in that regard.

Craggy Range found their Te Muna site by conducting secret digging sessions in successful Martinborough vineyards: quite what one can learn at 2am examining the soils by torchlight is debatable, but having learned what was working elsewhere, they looked for land that had the same characters and found it on Te Muna Road, outside town.

In other cases, the land revealed its potential after planting. Mate’s vineyard was intended to simply be a source of further fruit for Kumeu River Chardonnay, but it immediately showed its potential to be a standalone wine, fitting for the piece of land named after the father of such an illustrious winegrowing and making team.

The Calvert vineyard at Felton Road has one of the most interesting examples of human terroir. It has a surface soil of sluicings: fine silts washed down from the hills above by gold miners, hosing the soil in their search for the precious metal, so literally a manmade terroir, though below this surface is a rather older fine loess.

The concept of Terroir is shared by a great many indigenous people, not least Maori. Tangata whenua means people of the land, and the idea that there is an enduring relationship between the gifts of land and those that work the land to harvest the gifts is central to Maori tradition. The Donaldsons at Pegasus Bay have lineage to Ngai Tahu whose people have worked the South Island for hundreds of years before the first European sailed by.

A lot of threads connect the land and its harvest and wine growers are one of the few groups of farmers who still pursue the old goals of a unique expression of soil.

In an extended family group, there may be many wise members, with experience behind them, happy to offer a gentle guiding hand to younger or more unruly brothers and sisters.

This is the case within the Family of Twelve, where the role of chairman rotates to ensure the group benefits from the full range of talent and experience available to it. On 1st September 2009, the chairmanship passes from Paul Brajkovich at Kumeu River, to Clive Weston at Nautilus Estate.

Outgoing chair, Paul Brajkovich has seen the family settle down from its initial exuberance into a more steady and stable state. After several successful overseas trips, to important markets such as Australia, the USA, the UK and Ireland, the family members know each others’ strengths and weaknesses and there has been a comfortable melding of personalities.

Paul’s chairmanship has also seen sadder times. The passing of family member Ross Lawson grieved all of the family members and we offer his wife Barbara all our support and love.

Incoming chair Clive Weston, of Marlborough’s Nautilus Estate, has many years experience in the Wine Trade behind him and was recently inducted into the Restaurant Association of New Zealand’s Hall of Fame.

“We are one happy family and I look forward to the next phase in the evolution of the Family of Twelve” says Clive “I just hope I am not taking it into its terrible teens!”

Plans for the next twelve months include a programme of inbound visits from key sommeliers, buyers and wine writers from around the World and the development of a Family of Twelve Blog (see http://www.familyoftwelve.co.nz/news/it’s-the-dirt-stupid/ for the first instalment).

For further Information please contact Paul Brajkovich (outgoing chair), tel: 0064 +9 412 8415 email: paul@kumeuriver.co.nz or Clive Weston (incoming chair), tel: 0064 +9 531 5248 or visit www.familyoftwelve.co.nz

***

Information for editors:

The Family of Twelve was established in 2005. The group consists of a group of twelve highly regarded, family-owned wineries, covering the length and breadth of New Zealand and varieties, which perform very well in that country.

The first chairman of the Family of Twelve was Richard Riddiford of Palliser Estate.

The family members are:

Villa Maria Winery

Kumeu River

The Millton Vineyard

Craggy Range

Ata Rangi

Palliser Estate

Neudorf Vineyards

Nautilus Estate

Lawsons Dry Hills

Fromm Winery

Pegasus Bay

Felton Road

By far the three largest employers in New Zealand are the baking industry, the brewers and the wine makers. Admittedly they don’t pay all their workers minimum wage, but even the smallest winery takes on an extra hundred trillion or so workers each vintage. They’re yeasts.

Now most yeasts at bakeries, at breweries and at wineries come out of a packet. But each industry has groups of artisans who like to go wild: sourdough breads and wild ferments are the mark of those who treasure complexity and are prepared to live a little dangerously for it.

I know only a little about baking and nothing about brewing (go to www.wildyeastblog to learn about the baking side of this), but I suspect that the same principles apply. And the biggest principle is that the whole affair is an exercise in ignorance. If we ferment wild, we simply don’t know what we are letting live in our wine. You can’t interview candidates and essentially you are letting anything smaller than a ferret have a look-in.

Now there are two different aspects to this. The first is the early stage of ferments, when a wild ferment will have a lot of bugs other than saccharomyces joining in the party. Leading the dancing will probably be kloeckera, but you can expect to find bugs from the candida and pichia family, and all sorts of other malcontents. Some of these are spoilage yeasts which left to their own devices can ruin the wine. But after a few days, the saccharomyces should overwhelm the enemy having allowed them to contribute a subtle complexing factor to the wine without spoiling it. It can get scarier than that as well.

George Fistonich at Villa Maria recently told me how, on occasion, trucks have been delayed carrying must up from Marlborough to the Auckland winery. On arrival they unload a Pallecon container which is inflated like a deranged moon-hopper leaving the winery staff drawing lots for who will risk life and limb defusing the wild yeast bomb!

The more interesting aspect is the saccharomyces. These may not have been bought in a box, but are they really wild? Maybe they just drifted down from the winery up the road who use commercial strains? Now we know that different strains of saccharomyces create different flavours in wine, which is why all the yeast salesmen so enthusiastically ply their wares. So do truly local varieties exist and are their flavour profiles a legitimate, even an integral part of a wine’s terroir? This has been debated for some time, but now we have some serious research giving us some surprising results.

First how do you tell if yeasts are wild? Do they have some sort of test for their manners? Perhaps microscopes can reveal unkempt hairdos, tiny tattoos or other signs of a feral upbringing. How would one grade such signs? Perhaps we could create a unit of wildness:  let us call it the “Millicouth”. Yeasts of less than 250 Millicouths are entitled to be labelled wild. Actually a lot of people reject the term wild, preferring the less prejudicial “indigenous” , but this implies some political consequences. Do we need particular cultural sensitivities here? Do special rights, traditional customs attach to indigenous yeasts which perhaps we need to preserve and cherish?

A lot of questions to which we now have answers. Kumeu River is one of a number of family of twelve wineries who walk on the wild side (all the family members use wild ferments to some degree or another). So researchers kidnapped yeasts during ferments then interrogated them as to their upbringing (this is not done by use of bright lights and threats, but by dismantling their DNA and studying it in considerable detail). We are thrilled to report the following conclusions: of the 88 sub varieties of Saccharomyces isolated, none were of commercial parentage. The bulk of them were definitely of Kiwi origin (perhaps they wear tiny black jerseys?) and not international interlopers. It would also appear highly likely that many of the sub varieties are exclusive to this one winery. Similar, but distinctly different, populations can be found in other winery’s vineyards a few kilometers away, showing that these strains do come from the land and they are specific to very small areas.

There was one large source of non-native yeasts and these were found in the French oak barrels used for fermenting and elevage. It would appear that these yeasts originate in the oak forests of France and not from the cooperage itself.

So, those who take a walk on the wild side in New Zealand do indeed have a unique microbial terroir, that is distinct down to vineyard and winery level. Right now at Felton Road, we are awaiting news of analysis of our own yeast populations. Like Kumeu, all our ferments are wild; the Kumeu winery is a lot older than ours, one of New Zealand’s oldest, and it used to be a goat shed which has to be a big benefit in building microbial complexity, so perhaps we will see a smaller and simpler population? This all implies considerations we need to make in winery and vineyard practice. While hygiene is always of critical importance, an attempt to be sterile might have consequences close to genocide. Hygiene and sterility are very different things. Then there is the question of fungicides in the vineyard. To what extent does this damage a vital part of terroir? Just a couple of the many things for us to ponder as we absorb this latest piece in the jigsaw.

Twelve wineries join forces to take on the world

Robert Smith
The National Business Review / July 17, 2009

Click to open PDF of the original NBR article

The Family of 12 might sound like something out of a gangster movie, with mobsters deciding matters of life and death over plates of cannelloni in a darkened, smoke-filled room, but in reality, it is 12 of the country’s most well established wineries coming together to pool their collective skills and experience.

Formed five years ago, the Family of 12 includes six wineries from the North Island and six from the south, covering all the country’s major wine regions.

The group takes part in international roadshows, holding dinners and wine tastings targeting leading restaurateurs and upmarket independent wine retailers around the world.

Richard Riddiford, who served as the group’s inaugural chairman, said some of the criticism thrown at the group when it first formed, including concerns that the family could undermine the efforts of New Zealand winegrowers, had now subsided.

“It’s just a sign of a mature industry that there are groups of people that will work together with a common goal, and I think the rest of the industry can now see that those initial concerns were unfounded.”

Based on the 12 bottles of wine in a case, Mr Riddiford said it wasn’t always easy co-ordinating 12 strong egos, each passionate about the industry and their own brands, but that was the nature of the business and did not stop them from sharing information.

“We believe we have a collective strength that is more powerful than any single brand. When we all get together, the collective intellectual capital in the room is huge.”

Mr Riddiford added that the group was not about creating new distribution channels, with each individual brand needing to have an existing distribution set up in the US before it could join the family.

The original 12 wineries which signed up to be part of the group are all still with the organisation and after half a decade of working together, Mr Riddiford said it was no longer necessary for all 12 to take part in the roadshows.

“We are now at the point where it’s not necessary for all 12 to travel on a roadshow. We can cover markets with just four of us, because we have got enough confidence in each others’ brand to handle any situation.”

The group meets three or four times a year, and is about to meet for a mid-winter Christmas gathering. Members usually met at the various wineries and vineyards, letting each other see their latest developments in production and development and Mr Riddiford said it was also a golden opportunity to share feedback.

“One of our key performance indicators is what’s in the glass, and nobody will give you honest criticism on that level like another winemaker.”

• Kumeu River, Auckland
• Villa Maria, Auckland
• The Millton Vineyard, Gisborne
• Craggy Range, Hawkes Bay
• Palliser Estate, Martinborough
• Ata Rangi, Martinborough
• Fromm Winery, Marlborough
• Nautilus, Marlborough
• Lawson’s Dry Hills, Marlborough
• Neudorf Vineyards, Nelson
• Pegasus Bay, Waipara
• Felton Road, Central Otago

Occasional posts based on Family conversations
by Nigel Greening

Mid-winter is a time for contemplation. There are over 100,000 vines to prune and I wake up each morning contemplating with some satisfaction that I’m not going to be the one pruning them.

Instead my mind has been drifting back to vintage and the richly entertaining phenomenon that is the intern. At a Family Of Twelve dinner at Kumeu River a couple of weeks ago we were swapping intern horror stories.

I don’t know what it is about owning a winery, but it seems to prompt friends, acquaintances, people you once sat next to on a plane and a host of others to email you. It generally goes something like this:

I’m sending this note about my son Aaron. He’s going through a bit of indecision right now, not sure where his next move is, and his parole officer is completely useless. So I was thinking that if he could work a few weeks in your winery/vineyard it would help him to clear his head, get a new perspective on life and help him kick the habit. What do you think?

Yours sincerely,
Ted

Wow, thanks Ted. We were just talking about running a therapy group during our busiest time of year… and, come to think of it, I don’t remember sending you my children to work at your hedge fund and demonstrate their computer skills by trading 2 billion roubles while you’re out at a long lunch.

Now I don’t want it to sound as if all interns are a liability ― some of our best friends started out that way ― but the potential for people you don’t know to wreak untold damage to your wines and vines is always something to add a little frisson to the morning coffee.

Anyway, as I said, the Family got talking about this at our last dinner together and from those conversations, here’s just a few guidelines for those thinking of applying for a job and for those who may be tempted to hire cheap labour:

1. Why we don’t let interns work in the winery any more

   “I thought this was the hose to tank 5, but I’m sure that after you blend it into the other tanks of Riesling the pink colour won’t show.”

   This one didn’t happen to one of us, but it did to one of our close friends. And, no, the colour didn’t come out.

   Having said that, a similar accident by an intern at Villa Maria several years ago led to the creation of a tank of Chardonnay and Viognier: should that be Chardier or Viogonnay? Anyway, they liked it so much they started making it as a blend. I don’t think they pay the intern a royalty, though!

2. You can kick the kid out of the city but…

   This year I went in to the smoko room in the busiest part of vintage to find one sorry individual sitting there while all were hard at work outside. I asked what was wrong.

   He lifted his head from his hands with a look of abject loss.“There’s nothing you can do. We tried everything. There’s no way out of this, I just don’t know what I can do. I’ve been wracking my brains for an answer. But I’m going to have to go.” I asked if I could do anything to help with his problem.

   “Nothing. If an iPhone is outside coverage, that’s it.”

3. Beware the ‘Heir to the Domaine’
   
   These guys usually taste your wine then respond: “It’s very Frooody, isn’t it? So, are there people out there who like to buy this sort of wine?”
   
4. Department of the bleeding obvious…
   
   Walter’s law states: “Once a forklift has raised its cargo to a considerable height, it is no longer able to leave the winery via the door through which it just entered”. However across New Zealand every vintage there are a number of interns that rediscover this useful piece of physics.
5. The molecular chef… or a flavour too far
   
   An intern at Nautilus just had to find out what Caustic Soda actually tastes like. He now knows that as well as exactly how fast you can run to a cold tap and how quickly the New Zealand emergency service can respond to calls. Unfortunately I don’t think he can taste much else these days.
6. The budding sculptor
   Judy Finn at Neudorf told me of this excellent example. A great way to demonstrate the power of Boyle’s Law is to try to pump out a wine tank without first opening the lid or some other way for air to enter. It’s pretty dramatic and converts a very expensive and useful piece of stainless steel equipment into a gigantic sculpture of a crushed beer can.

   One intern, having wasted $16,000 of the winery budget in this way was so excited that he could only think of having his photo taken with his new creation to email to all his friends. In case you wonder where they get this attitude, when said intern’s parents visited the winery some months later the first thing they wanted to do was to view the creation in question and seemed rather disappointed that their son’s greatest work had been sent to the scrap-yard.

On a more serious side, James Millton called me the other morning, (not to suggest that James is serious, just the conversation took on the rather more sombre side of contemplative). Conversation started up around his trip to Bordeaux and the UK, but swung to his local region’s situation. In Gisborne, Pernod-Ricard have recently told the vast majority of their growers that they won’t be needing any more grapes in future, thank-you-very-much. The public line is that the market has moved away from Chardonnay and the other grapes they grow in those parts, so they don’t need them any more. The truth is closer to the fact that with the glut of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, they can source most of the fruit they need and have decided to focus on in Marlborough and source it cheaper and more conveniently.

So, what are we to learn from this? Firstly, the corporate reaction to perceived market shifts. Chardonnay’s out, so let’s bale out as quick as we can. But does this mean that in Burgundy, Dominic Lafon is top grafting his Meursaults to Pinot Gris, or Anne-Claude Leflaive has switched to running a drive-through carwash? I don’t think so. Wine producers worthy of the name don’t chase marketing trends, they make them happen. If Pernod-Ricard can’t sell their Chardonnay, then, just maybe, they should think about how to make it better rather than throw the farmers who have earned them profits for the last few decades onto the scrap heap. In a region where 40% of the population are indigenous people who often don’t have the most flexible skill sets, this is a regional calamity.

There is a touch of irony in the fact that Pernod-Ricard are the largest producer of wine in New Zealand. The French are often keen to portray themselves as artisans fighting New World corporate giants, well here the boot is on the opposite foot.

Family businesses can’t work this way. They need perspectives that last decades or generations, not to the next quarterly statement and the next shareholders’ meeting. And, when things go wrong for them, rather than bale out and distance themselves from the problem, they have to dig deeper and sort it out properly. Within the Family Of Twelve, every member makes at least one Chardonnay. Come back in a couple of year’s time and we’ll still be doing it.

Cheers,

Nigel Greening for the Family of Twelve

People in New Zealand may think of the wine industry as being one big family with similar hopes and ambitions.

Well, it isn’t like that.

As a winery which crushes 180 tonnes I wouldn’t have a clue what is feels like to crush two thousand tonnes of grapes and I wouldn’t have the ability to sell the wine.

Thank goodness for New Zealand there are enough savvy (get it ?) businesspeople who know how to move large volumes of wine. Because the amount of wine Neudorf Vineyards produces isn’t going to produce foreign earnings to make Alan Bollard’s grin.

The easiest comparison to make is the food industry…restaurants like Logan Brown in Wellington and Hopgoods in Nelson may well be considered to be in the same industry as Pizza Hut and the local fish and chip shop.

However their budgets, their marketing plan and their staff training would be worlds apart.

But when a tsunami like the world financial crisis starts rising off shore then no matter how small the rockpool you are hiding in, you will feel the effect. Any smart winery in New Zealand will be tearing their budgets apart and finding ways of becoming leaner and meaner as a way of surviving what some say will be one of the toughest years since the war.

The wine industry’s problems started well before we were aware of sub-prime mortgages. Many new players carry intolerable debt loads and have no ability to ride out minor storms, let alone tsunamis.

From my perspective (which is that a small quality-focused producer) too many people have been too gungho about their ability to “grow the market.” The United States has proved to be a disappointment. One larger company CEO told me “never in the field of wine marketing has so much been spent by so many for such a poor return.” It has been a salutary lesson after the success in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Right now people are revelling in being able to buy pretty good wine at bargain basement prices, prices which in many cases barely cover the costs of production.

How did this happen ? How did people get their sale projections so wrong and then have to move so much stock to keep the cash flowing through their accounts?

In the end these sort of crisis bring out the best in an industry. Some wineries will not survive, but those that do will be smarter and more cautious . The major concern in the interim is that people don’t drop their standards. Poor wine reflects on everyone and any damage to New Zealand’s reputation as a quality producer is unforgivable..

What we will see will be better ways of selling wines… opening a cellar door with a bit of a splash and flicking an email to a few mates in the legal fraternity isn’t going to cut it any more. And exporting is not that easy.

It can be difficult to find an agent-many of the best importers already have more wineries than they can handle-and it is the same within New Zealand.

I am involved in one venture which has the potential to develop new ways of selling.

Neudorf Vineyards is part of The Family of 12 – a cooperative export marketing group set up by a group of friends who share the same ideals and enjoy each other’s company. We have travelled together many times and the concept of selling each other’s wine is a talking point at wine events. In Chicago last year three of us poured wines for Neudorf, Ata Rangi, Felton Road and Pegasus Bay, Nautilus, Palliser, Lawson’s Dry Hills and Craggy Range ,Villa Maria, Kumeu, Millton and Fromm. The Americans were fascinated by this approach and we had excellent feedback. On a personal level, these trips can be tedious and lonely and travelling with friends makes it a whole lot more enjoyable. In a roundabout way this talk of families brings me to a sad note.

One of our family died recently… Ross Lawson from Lawson’s Dry Hills. He was a memorable character- funny, stroppy and bright. He started as a contract shearer then built swimming pools and ended up owning a great winery and being one of the our industry’s leaders. Ross was one of the super heroes behind the Screwcap revolution. An avid supporter of the Labour Party, his coffin came into the funeral painted bright red. We will miss him.

And that brings me a whimsical finish. Life is short. Enjoy it. Probably with a bottle of excellent New Zealand wine at your elbow – might I suggest a Lawson’s Dry Hills Gewürztraminer – and let’s toast both Ross and Barbara Lawson.

FoodWine with Tony Harper- Brisbane News August 13-19, 2008

Desirable dozen

A group of New Zealand vineyards comes together to talk up top-flight pinot noir

CULTURED KIWIS … pinot noir professionals Paul Brajkovich, Ivan Donaldson, Judy Finn, Steve Smith, Phyll Pattie, Richard Riddiford, Clive Weston, Ross Lawson, Annie Millton, Blair Walter, Pol Lenzinger and George Fistonich

It’s always an interesting weekend when members of New Zealand’s self-formed vinous elite – the Family of Twelve – make their annual visit to Brisbane. But this year had extra allure with Blair Walter presenting a tasting of 12 New Zealand pinot noirs; one from each participating winery. Blair has been the winemaker at Felton Road (arguably New Zealand’s most famous pinot noir estate) since 1996, guiding it from its early days (vines were planted in 1992) through to the superstar status it enjoys today, so his insight at this style of tasting was always going to be valuable. What made it even better was the small nature of the tasting group – 16 in total.

The tasting started in the north (Auckland) and finished with Central Otago, so there were pronounced regional differences. And, of course, there was no lack of stylistic idiosyncrasies due to whims and wants of the various winemakers. But there was an underlying thread connecting all of the wines – a Kiwi-ness for want of a better word.

Kumeu River 2006 began the tasting and, while it certainly garners its fair share of criticism every time I see it shown, it remains (vintage after vintage) one of my favourite Kiwi pinot noirs and it was probably in my top three at this tasting. The fact that it is grown so far north means that it is outside the comfort zone for pinot noir, but Michael Brajkovich (he makes the stuff, while brother Paul is the marketing director) is a deep thinker and an exceedingly accomplished winemaker, and he gets more earthy, funky complexity in his pinot than most of his countrymen.

The Martinborough region was represented by Ata Rangi 2006, Palliser 2006 and Craggy Range Te Muna Road 2006. There is an inherent depth and power to Martinborough pinots that makes them alluring and quite serious (in both price and nature). The Palliser was probably the least of the three in absolute terms, but it sells for about $40, which is half the price of the Ata Rangi and perhaps two-thirds of the Craggy Range. Thinking bang for buck, it is a pretty serious wine.

Ata Rangi pinot noir generally demands four or five years in bottle before it really starts to sing, and I reckon the ’06, while a crackingly good wine, was looking pretty tough, tight and angular. That said, there was power, fruit and framework to burn, and I have no doubt that it will be a pretty amazing wine once some cellar time has worked its magic.

As for the Craggy Range, it was typical of the stable – carefully crafted, blemish-free, fragrant, pretty, polished and exceedingly expressive.

Marlborough was represented by four wines: Lawson’s Dry Hills 2005, Villa Maria Taylors Pass 2006, Nautilus 2007 and Fromm Clayvin Vineyard 2005. They were all pretty strong (especially the Nautilus in terms of value), but as far as I’m concerned the Fromm is in a class of its own: firmly structured, a little wild, brooding, complex and needing time.

From Nelson, there was Neudorf Moutere 2006 (brilliant) and from Waipara came the Pegasus Bay 2006, another wine I treasure vintage after vintage. But in the end, the 2007 Felton Road showed why it is regarded as the pinnacle of Kiwi pinot. It has the rich, explosive fruit that is characteristic of Otago pinot noirs, but it is reigned in and backed by a ripe, tannic framework and there is depth and complexity to burn.

As for the commonality that ran through all the wines, it has left me a little perplexed. Perhaps most producers are aiming for a similar stylistic goal; one that prizes fruit clarity and a fairly solid structure. And there was a fairly dominant, stalky note that ran through most wines. It’s made me curious enough to explore the subject further.

The Sunday Business Post

Green and clean on Craggy Range

Sunday, June 22, 2008 – By Tomás Clancy

In California and the Asia Pacific region a new, superwealthy set has been born – that of the environmental millionaire.

They have earned their money not in computer chips or oil fields but in the worlds’s largest environmentally-friendly business.

And we’re not talking hemp baskets or organic chutney but environmental action on a scale that has a huge effect on the planet.

We’re talking, of course, about wine production. The wine industry operates on renewable energy, sustainable production and environmentally-conscious waste management. Many have begun already to see the attractions of the business, which has blue-chip, sustainable, organic and green potential – along with a wonderful end product that is produced in beautiful surroundings.

Terry Peabody, chief executive of Transpacific Industries, was the world’s first environmental billionaire.

His multibillion-dollar company heads a multinational waste management operation. It deals in everything from green-truck manufacture to waste treatment and water harvesting to turning waste from power stations into an environmentally-friendly building material.

Green and clean on Craggy Range

He also owns Craggy Range, a stunning, world class New Zealand winery that has abandoned any New World shyness about terroir and produces high-quality single-vineyard, fine wines in the French style. The vineyard is Peabody’s legacy to his children; he wanted to leave them something that was not just clean, but pristine.

To explore Craggy Range’s wine philosophy, we can go back to one of the oldest written texts that details not just taste, terroir, location, but also philosophy and ambition for wine and vineyards: that is, the Bible.

I am not talking about the water into wine miracle at the Feast of Cana but the detailed directions about how and where to plant vines, what to look for as they blossom, how to store them, and when to drink their produce.

At this point, I might add that I do not actually spend my time in deep contemplation of the Old Testament, but when you are studying wine and wine culture you can travel from Bob Dylan to the Bible and back, in under an hour. As with much of the subjects in the Bible, vineyards are used as a metaphor; for example, in the old testament they appear as a reference to the running of the Jewish nation. Today, the vineyard analogy is interchangeable with how our economy operates: leaders who fail to tend the vineyard, bring trouble to the nation, and so forth.

However, read without metaphor, the Bible contains lots of practical wine making advice. The Song of Solomon says ‘‘let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards, Let us see whether the vine has budded, And its blossom is open.”

It is practically a challenge from the lips of God’s messengers to engage in wine tourism and, more specifically, to see it all at first light.

I was reminded of this when I travelled to Craggy Range to meet its director, Terry Peabody’s son TJ.

‘‘Every single vine, every bunch of grapes on our vineyards is visited and handled. Our agriculturists and our winemakers really live in the vineyards,” says TJ Peabody.

‘‘They get up early to the vineyards.

‘‘Our wines are not just handmade and hand-harvested, they are also handraised. This is why we emphasise the idea of the human hand and the human footprint in the vineyards and on the landscape.

‘‘For us it is about trusting human beings; of course we have all the back-up, the laboratories and good science, but we make the final judgment on in the vines based on experience and human expertise,” says Peabody.

This extraordinary, terroir-oriented vineyard places much more emphasis on the outdoor parts of winemaking – the variable, natural elements rather than the actions of the winemaking process which are so often emphasised in the New World.

Craggy Range rejects the idea of making wines to a brand or label expectation. There is no cross-regional blending here. All its wines are single-estate wines, products of what this or that piece of soil and stone could create in any particular year.

It is an incredibly green business, and its emphasis on ‘muck and the dealing there with’ ties in with the greater Peabody empire of waste recycling.

‘‘How we got to be such a large corporation is a strange story in itself,” says Peabody.

‘‘It all began when my father invented a process that essentially allowed us to recycle waste from traditional power stations and turn it into a building material.

‘‘Because of the material’s particular properties we needed a particular type of truck – so we bought the trucks. Then the Australian company that made the trucks rang and said they were going out of business and we’d have to look for other trucks,” he says.

‘‘My father rang the company in Canada that manufactured the trucks and said, ‘listen we’ll buy the parts off you and we’ll assemble them here ourselves’. The next thing we knew we were the truck manufacturer for Australia.

‘‘A few years later, the Canadian company went out of business so we bought the Canadian manufacturer and are the worldwide manufacturer of environmentally-friendly trucks.”

Eventually, the company was floated and the trucking elements sold to MAN and Daimler Benz, for a tidy fortune. At this time, a large and vinous meal took place in the Peabody house.

‘‘My mother said to my father, ‘everything we do is full of dirt, these are big dirty businesses to leave to our children, isn’t there anything else we can do?’

‘‘In the environmental waste business, no matter how green, you spend all your time talking about waste, sludge, compost,” says Peabody.

‘‘Then it just kind of hit us all,” Peabody says, holding up an imaginary glass – ‘‘the wine, this is what we love.” The family began to search the world for the perfect vineyard or chateau to buy.

‘‘The wines we really loved were French, and specifically Sancerre, so that’s where we looked first. The hunt began in the Loire, but my father realised it wasn’t feasible. It would be like a holiday home we would never visit.

‘‘So we started to look closer to home in California, but it was the height of the dotcom boom and whatever else we are, we are not foolish about land or money. We were not going to pay stupid prices,” Peabody says.

‘‘We knew all the proverbs – ‘How do you make a small fortune in the wine business? Invest a large one!’ – and were determined to approach this not as a millionaire’s plaything but as a serious and long-term family business, a legacy.

‘‘Myself and my siblings have all signed a legacy lockin clause which says we cannot sell our shares in the vineyard for 100 years after our parents’ death. I am hoping to have my kids sign it too.”

Craggy Range Winery consists of two ranges of wines all based on the single vineyard concept. The first are varietal-driven wines, such as their sauvignon blanc from the TeMuna Road vineyard.

The second emphasise the vineyard and are produced in the manner of a grand cru wine. These are the Craggy Range Winery, Les Beaux Cailloux, Gimblett Gravels vineyard.

The concept is totally European. Les Beaux Cailloux is a 100 per cent chardonnay, but that’s not the point. Like a Meursault or a Nuits St Georges, the idea is that you buy the place, the appellation vineyards, the idea of what a Meursault is, not a chardonnay from Meursault, just a Meursault.

In time, Peabody believes the name Gimblett Gravels will simply become the byword for great chardonnay produced from this unique former river bed and its barren terrain.

The name Beaux Cailloux is French for beautiful gravels – which will strike a cord with Bordeaux lovers. Its Graves region is home of first-classed growth Chateau Haut Brion and Lochlan Quinn’s Chateau Fieuzal.

They make a highly regarded single-vineyard Bordeaux blend called Sophia – a classical blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and malbec.

The ambition of the Craggy Range Winery, with its vineyards on both the north and south Islands in New Zealand, is breathtaking, but is based on a sound business model.

It is run in partnership with Steve Smith MW, a multi-award-winning winemaker who is also responsible for the cool climate wines and his own baby, the Sophia bottling.

‘‘We all bring our own particular expertise and a total commitment to making sustainable and organic produce,” says Peabody.

The Transpacific motto – Recover, Recycle, Reuse – is put into practice at Craggy Range too: ‘‘To make great wines and work as everything should be done, for the long term and in a conscientious way, in a sustainable way.”

Craggy Range Winery

* Craggy Range Te Kahu Merlot Cabernet Gimblett Gravels 2005, €28, (90)

* Craggy Range Te Muna Pinot Noir 2004, €35, (90)

* Craggy Range Te Muna Sauvignon Blanc 2007, €19, (89)

* Craggy Range Sophia 2004, €40, (92)