A Californian’s take on New Zealand Pinot
Sunday 17 January
So, my Wine of the Week is Pyramid Valley’s 2008 Earthsmoke Pinot Noir. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve tasted from New Zealand but then they’re doing things a little bit differently here.
The Burgundy-trained Californian, Mike Weersing, has been biodynamic since planting in this virgin territory in 2000. Before coming to New Zealand, he lived in a camper van “cadging” jobs off his heroes: Alsace’s Jean Michel Deiss, the Mosel’s Ernie Loosen and Burgundy’s Nicolas Potel. People thought he was mad leaving his winemaking job at Neudorf to set up in the unknown Pyramid Valley but he seems to have proven the sceptics wrong.
What is it that makes his wines so different to the rest of the country? Perhaps it’s the soil. Weersing said, “We could not locate the combination of clay and limestone anywhere else in Waipara.”
Or could the explanation lie in low crops? The two-hectare vineyard planted with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is planted at an Old World density of 1m by 0.8m with only 400g of fruit per vine. Elsewhere, it’s common to see 3.5kg of fruit on a vine – and 5kg for Sauvignon Blanc. The concentration comes through in the wines.
What’s more, 95% of his vines are ungrafted and he has found that those that are grafted on to American roostocks are the first to suffer drought. He’s also discovered that the roots of the ungrafted vines can penetrate the limestone whereas the grafted ones get to the limestone and stop burrowing down, missing out on all the mineral goodness of the limestone. While most would worry about the threat of phylloxera, this vineyard is pretty isolated and Weersing has little concern about the vine louse.
Weersing doesn’t irrigate either unlike many other New Zealand grape growers. In Marlborough, some producers on free-draining gravel soils have told me they irrigate twice a day with 400mm of water at the height of summer. But this goes against his idea of terroir. “You are not just expressing the soil, you are expressing the season,” he says, “ and if there’s a bit of drought stress then so be it. For example, if you love Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses, you want to see it in all its manifestations.”
He makes his wines in a shipping container rather than a swanky winery. He doesn’t add anything including sulphur (until bottling) and when he does bottle his reds, he doesn’t fine nor filter, so expect a slightly cloudy wine but with all the good bits still in it. Considering his wines have a high pH (4.1 for his 08 Pinot Noir), this should mean that the wines are really unstable and prone to microbial spoilage. It goes against all the wine books that his wines should work. But they do.
Some people might think Weersing’s a hippy. Perhaps he is, but who cares? The wines are impressive and I’m slowly coming around to biodynamics. The proof is in the glass.
Highs and lows in Nelson
Monday 21 December
Nelson has had plenty praise from the wine literati. The region’s press pack proudly contained quotes like:
“Nelson is home to New Zealand’s finest aromatics”
-Steven Spurrier, Decanter UK
“Nelson produces outstanding Pinot Noir which can equal the best from anywhere”
-Nick Bulleid MW, Australian Gourmet Wine Traveller
As you’d expect from such comments, I went there with high expectations. Apart from a few shining stars, I came away slightly disappointed by the general standard. Perhaps I was having an off day or it was the 2008 that let the region down…
What did excite me was Neudorf’s Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – but then that’s nothing unexpected. It has had write up after write up for its Puligny-like Chardonnay. I’ve turned up late to join the party of admirers. The 2008 (18.5-19/20) has a beautiful streak of acidity coupled with elegant nectarine fruit, minerality and well integrated hazelnutty new French oak (£14.50, Richards Walford). I also started waxing lyrical on my tasting notes for its ’08 Tom’s Block Pinot Noir and ’07 Moutere Pinot. In brief, both were tight and focused with good mid-palate weight with fresh acid and firm chalky notes and savoury complexity. I won’t bore you with the other tasty adjectives.
Another shining light is Richmond Plains/Te Mania. Same winemaker, two labels. Richmond is biodynamic; Te Mania isn’t but sticks to organic principles. There’s clearly been a lot of work put in here since converting to Rudolf Steiner’s tenets from making compost tea to regular oil sprays against powdery mildew. I’ve seen many vineyards recently and even if they grow cover crops down the middle of the rows, under the row you’ll still see a strip of bare earth where weeds have been hoed or killed with herbicides. Not here. The vineyard is almost meadow-like. The vines look incredibly balanced here with shoot growth appearing to be much less vigorous than in other vineyards I’ve visited.
Balance in the vineyard is reflected in the wines. The majority of my notes included the phrase ‘great balance’, which many wines fail to achieve. Alcohol levels are in check - as low as 12% in the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc – with structure and some old world-esque restraint.
Neudorf, Richmond Plains plus Seifried’s Decanter trophy-winning ’08 Sweet Agnes Riesling showed what Nelson can do when it’s on form but many lacked the wow-factor that I had come searching for.
Across the board the Rieslings and Sauvignon Blancs didn’t do it for me when compared to Central Otago, Waipara and Marlborough. The Sauvignons were certainly more food friendly than those of Marlborough, which tend to jump out of the glass and bop you on the nose. But from the cross section I tasted in the region, many wineries need to up their game to warrant the praise Nelson has received, rather than basing their reputation on a small clutch of award-winning wines.
Harsh? Maybe, and I’d like to be proven wrong.
Nelson’s “tiddlywinks” need to shout louder
Sunday 20 December
So, I’m in Nelson – a 90-minute drive from Marlborough. It’s very different to Marlborough with most wineries less than 6km from the sea, 50% more rainfall and less diurnal temperature difference. Everyone you meet here will tell you that it is the wine region with the most sunshine hours too – apparently Marlborough tries to make that claim in the same way as Australia and New Zealand fight over who invented the pavlova, but Mike Brown, GM of Waimea Estates and chairman of Nelson Wineart (the regional winegrowers’ association) set the record straight: “In the last seven out of eight years we had had the most sunshine.” I’ll let you fight it out amongst yourselves.
The region is pretty small, making up just 4% of the country’s total production and boasting only 24 wineries. Most producers are small too. Seifried who produces 130,000 cases each year and Waimea Estate are the major players and even that pales in comparison to other major wineries, says Chris Seifried: “We are tiddlywinks compared to Kim Crawford, Wither Hills, Cloudy Bay and the likes.”
With all these small players, making a greater push internationally has been a hard task. Seifried added, “We have not been as loud as other regions. Many wineries sell all their production locally so they don’t need to go to the international wine shows. Nelson needs more people telling our story.”
Its story is currently focused on aromatic white varieties. But, you could argue so is Waipara’s and Marlborough’s, so I’m not sure how that’s a point of difference. Nevertheless, it isn’t Marlborough and, according to Brown that’s a big positive. “Where there’s a swathe of Marlborough wine on offer, people want something different. Many distributors are taking us on because we can offer that.”
Even though they aren’t Marlborough, Sauvignon Blanc leads the charge for the region, followed by Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir. However sales of SB haven’t been without difficulty this year, says Lars Jensen, director of sales and marketing at Te Mania Wines. “There’s huge demand for Sauvignon but small companies can’t compete with the big boys. Our distributors are looking for something else to sell. We sold everything but Sauvignon to our US distributor and we had to really work on him to take a pallet of it on consignment.” There’s always two sides to the story.
Tomorrow: did I set my expectations too high in Nelson?