Iconic Marlborough - really not so iconic after all?
We visit two different producers in Marlborough which turns out to be a bit of a grape factory.
We visit two different producers in Marlborough which turns out to be a bit of a grape factory. ‘Delta and Tinpot and Kim Crawford Wines - March 15th
Getting up this morning was very difficult – the pressure of constant travelling is really starting to get to me, I think. However, there are far worse places in the world to open your eyes than a gorgeous little room in the middle of a field in Martinborough.
Back through the hedge dragging my suitcase and to breakfast at Clive and Phyll’s house where Clive talked to me about New Zealand over muesli. I have to come back here with Jude and spend more time – there is a whole new world to find out about here; one I really don’t know at all.
Just as I was about to get onto the bus, I realised that I could not find my purse. Much running around ensued but despite checking all options, including stopping by the Martinborough Hotel again, it seemed well and truly gone which is a huge annoyance but not really deadly serious.
Back to Wellington airport for a flight in what they call here ‘Pencil planes’ to Blenheim on South Island. These are incredibly narrow bits of metal with what feel like teeny tiny seats – 19 of them. To get to the plane, we had to walk onto the airfield but had to stay strictly within white lines painted on the ground. Distracted at having to phone poor Jude to get him to cancel all my cards, I strayed centimetres from the line and was immediately forced back inside it by a burly airfield person. My face must have registered my disdain for such linear beaurocracy because he did apologise sheepishly and explained that the rules were very strict.
I have no idea of why they are so strict as I have completely failed to come up with an imaginary scenario in which disaster would befall a hapless passenger who did not stay exactly within the lines but perhaps there are airfield mysteries which I simply have no idea of.
These planes are wonderful actually – you get to see straight out through the front window, one of the pilots talks to you pre-flight and because they don’t fly very high, you get an incredible view out of the windows.
And what a view. We flew over the Cook Strait in what was still clear, cut glass morning light, the drama of this amazing place unfolding underneath us. Breathtakingly blue sea with dark, jutting land mass rising out of it. Silt from the rivers makes patterns in the sea – azure patches flow into much darker, muddier blue. It is from this that New Zealand’s most iconic wine – Cloudy Bay, got its name. From certain careful angles, it looks ancient but undiscovered, like the 19 of us in the pencil plane where original settlers of a mysterious island .
Then Marlborough comes into view and shatters that illusion completely. I am not quite sure what I expected of Marlborough but it certainly was not what I saw from the plane. Mile upon mile of vast vineyard land stretched between the bordering mountain ranges, most of these on the flat land. It looks like nothing so much as a great factory of wine grapes and while they undoubtedly make some very fine stuff here, I am afraid that the region itself is a huge disappointment.
Speaking to the viticulturist at Wild Earth in central Otago about it was very interesting. He is from the region and apparently witnessed at first hand the complete explosion in plantings once Marlborough Sauvignon became a world wine phenomenon. Where once those who bought land had been careful to choose good sites with good soils, now it was a free for all with larger producers and Johnny-come-lately’s in a buying frenzy which exploded in the late 90’s, planting where ever they can. Almost all plantable land is now gone with about 22,000 hectares under vine. It used to be much more a poly-culture as well with all sorts of fruit grown here but now almost nothing remains of this.
Vast mono-cultures are never a good idea – the bigger the blocks of a single crop, the more a disease or a pest will spread like wild fire, with nothing else to halt its progress. Nature needs eco systems in order to sustain itself and single crops over vast areas are as edifying for plants and animals ultimately as giant council estates are for human beings.
We bump and shudder our way into Blenheim airport. The air has a bite to it that we have not experienced yet on this trip and distant mountains have a sprinkling of snow – ridiculously early in the season. Then we were back on another bus, witnessing the endless stream of vines at road level.
It is amazing how relatively quickly this region has grown into the monster that it is. The very first vines where planted in 1973 and in just 20 years, it had grown into the largest and best known in the country. The pungent, tropical fruit salad flavour of Marlboroughs most successful variety – Sauvignon Blanc - is much beloved and eminently approachable, so this phenomenon shows no signs yet of abating.
We were on our way to see Matt Thompson – flying wine maker extraordinaire – who now makes wines all over the world but who is originally from this region and who now consults widely here. He has recently become involved here with Delta and Tinpot Hut wines, made on an estate purchased in 2000 by four partners – of which he is one and David Gleave of Liberty wines is another. Principally, their aim is to make great Pinot Noir in Marlborough – something they feel that the region is entirely capable of. They are however doing Sauvignon as well with plans for other varieties – notably Syrah from Hawkes Bay, as well as Pinot Gris and Riesling.
The Delta vineyard is situated at the mouth of the Waihopai valley to the west of Blenheim, where a steep sided, triangular hill divides the valley in two. There are vineyards on the flats where the Delta Vineyard label Pinot Noir is planted and those on the hills where altitudes get up to 175 metres. The clay soils here, plus the particular climatic conditions which make Marlborough so suited to Sauvignon – lots of sunshine, warm days, cool nights, lots of cool, dry wind and crystal clear light – make this a heaven for Pinot as well, Matt believes.
Pinot needs low vigour soils and Sauvignon Blanc is completely the opposite. Their Sauvignon is therefore planted nearer to the sea where the soils are very well drained gravels while the Pinot is planted further inland on clay slopes – even lower vigour than the flat. The wind here is amazingly strong bringing cool sea air (the sea around here is very deep and consequently very cold) which means that there is no downy mildew but which also means that flowering and fruit set can be problematic when interrupted by very gusty days.
This wind means that vineyard design– always an important aspect to consider – is even more vital here.
We drove through the vineyards while Matt gave us a commentary on his vines – all still remarkably young. Those for the Marlborough Pinot are mere saplings at 2 years old (and in my opinion that is obvious from the taste). Finally we came upon a sight that would have been hugely welcome if I were not so sick and tired of eating and drinking. Even so, it was rather glorious.
A long trestle table, resplendent in white linen with baskets of fresh bread, cutlery and bunches of Sauvignon as decoration had been set between two rows of Pinot. Another table set slightly apart buckled slightly under the weight of salads, cold meats, hot and cold smoked salmon and a variety of cheeses.
Because of the great energy and enthusiasm of the wind, lunch was a lively affair. We had to make frequent dives for our napkins, the base of our wine glasses, stray chunks of bread etc to stop them from being transported across the hill we were on the crest of. A pine forest to our right meant that it was considerably less blowy where we were than elsewhere, but it was still somewhat of a challenge. Trying to taste wine, take notes and hold onto my salad leaves meant that I had more than enough to be getting on with.
Please note that as these notes were made in difficult circumstances, they are not exactly comprehensive.
2006 Delta Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
Honeyed, but not overly tropical fruit with a good smoky edge and finish. Fine but really not outstanding. Apparently the fruit in this is often very tropical – something it is not really showing today although there is underlying richness.
2006 Tinpot Hut Sauvignon Blanc
A lot leaner and less honeyed than above and much better for it. Fresh grapefruit with not a trace of confected pear drop ( a problem at this price point from here). Great length and smoky development and good finish.
2006 Delta Marlborough Vineyard Pinot Noir
This is the wine from 2 year old vines which I think is a challenge too far – even for a winemaker of Matt Thompson’s talents. There is some pleasing fresh cranberry fruit here but it is very lacking in intensity. All the components are in place though and I am sure that in time, this will be good wine. The vines just need to do a bit of growing up first.
2005 Hatters Hill Pinot Noir
Much better grip than the Delta with subtle aromatics and good, scented red and black cherry fruit. There is freshness right to the finish – no coffee notes as they don’t use any toasted oak and this is actually very refreshing.
After lunch I walked through the rows, admiring again how green the green and how blue the blue of the sky looks in this amazingly lucid light. I may not like Marlborough very much, but I am increasingly smitten with New Zealand.
After lunch, we were on our way to see Kim Crawford. This may be entirely unprofessional of me but I am not going to record this visit. Firstly, by this stage I was feeling completely and utterly exhausted. Secondly, I really do not like the wines of Kim Crawford – I never have, and the tasting we did there only confirmed that I pretty much still loathe them. Thirdly, while he has built an amazingly successful brand, this is simply not the sort of wine making I am much interested in. This is large scale – no where near the million plus cases of some of the worlds big monster brands, but certainly big. No-one seemed to know for sure, but estimates were around the 250,000 mark for production here and certainly visually, it was much more factory like than anywhere else we had been – monster tanks, rows of presses lined up etc etc.
Now, many very good, eminently drinkable wines are made in ‘factories’ such as this, they don’t all come from quirky little wooden shacks by a long shot. However, I do struggle that much harder to find real character and individuality in wines produced on this scale and at the moment I simply don’t have the energy to go into detail about something I really fundamentally dislike.
Post tasting we were dropped off in our palatial apartments (they do like apartments here) and I flopped on the sofa where I would happily have paid a large amount of money (if I had not lost my purse) to stay for the evening.
This was not to be though – 45 minutes later we were in the function room of the place we were staying for dinner with Kim and various members of his team.
I did manage to sneak away relatively early at around 10pm and managed about an hours work back at my room before collapsing into bed again.
Getting up this morning was very difficult – the pressure of constant travelling is really starting to get to me, I think. However, there are far worse places in the world to open your eyes than a gorgeous little room in the middle of a field in Martinborough.
Back through the hedge dragging my suitcase and to breakfast at Clive and Phyll’s house where Clive talked to me about New Zealand over muesli. I have to come back here with Jude and spend more time – there is a whole new world to find out about here; one I really don’t know at all.
Just as I was about to get onto the bus, I realised that I could not find my purse. Much running around ensued but despite checking all options, including stopping by the Martinborough Hotel again, it seemed well and truly gone which is a huge annoyance but not really deadly serious.
Back to Wellington airport for a flight in what they call here ‘Pencil planes’ to Blenheim on South Island. These are incredibly narrow bits of metal with what feel like teeny tiny seats – 19 of them. To get to the plane, we had to walk onto the airfield but had to stay strictly within white lines painted on the ground. Distracted at having to phone poor Jude to get him to cancel all my cards, I strayed centimetres from the line and was immediately forced back inside it by a burly airfield person. My face must have registered my disdain for such linear beaurocracy because he did apologise sheepishly and explained that the rules were very strict.
I have no idea of why they are so strict as I have completely failed to come up with an imaginary scenario in which disaster would befall a hapless passenger who did not stay exactly within the lines but perhaps there are airfield mysteries which I simply have no idea of.
These planes are wonderful actually – you get to see straight out through the front window, one of the pilots talks to you pre-flight and because they don’t fly very high, you get an incredible view out of the windows.
And what a view. We flew over the Cook Strait in what was still clear, cut glass morning light, the drama of this amazing place unfolding underneath us. Breathtakingly blue sea with dark, jutting land mass rising out of it. Silt from the rivers makes patterns in the sea – azure patches flow into much darker, muddier blue. It is from this that New Zealand’s most iconic wine – Cloudy Bay, got its name. From certain careful angles, it looks ancient but undiscovered, like the 19 of us in the pencil plane where original settlers of a mysterious island .
Then Marlborough comes into view and shatters that illusion completely. I am not quite sure what I expected of Marlborough but it certainly was not what I saw from the plane. Mile upon mile of vast vineyard land stretched between the bordering mountain ranges, most of these on the flat land. It looks like nothing so much as a great factory of wine grapes and while they undoubtedly make some very fine stuff here, I am afraid that the region itself is a huge disappointment.
Speaking to the viticulturist at Wild Earth in central Otago about it was very interesting. He is from the region and apparently witnessed at first hand the complete explosion in plantings once Marlborough Sauvignon became a world wine phenomenon. Where once those who bought land had been careful to choose good sites with good soils, now it was a free for all with larger producers and Johnny-come-lately’s in a buying frenzy which exploded in the late 90’s, planting where ever they can. Almost all plantable land is now gone with about 22,000 hectares under vine. It used to be much more a poly-culture as well with all sorts of fruit grown here but now almost nothing remains of this.
Vast mono-cultures are never a good idea – the bigger the blocks of a single crop, the more a disease or a pest will spread like wild fire, with nothing else to halt its progress. Nature needs eco systems in order to sustain itself and single crops over vast areas are as edifying for plants and animals ultimately as giant council estates are for human beings.
We bump and shudder our way into Blenheim airport. The air has a bite to it that we have not experienced yet on this trip and distant mountains have a sprinkling of snow – ridiculously early in the season. Then we were back on another bus, witnessing the endless stream of vines at road level.
It is amazing how relatively quickly this region has grown into the monster that it is. The very first vines where planted in 1973 and in just 20 years, it had grown into the largest and best known in the country. The pungent, tropical fruit salad flavour of Marlboroughs most successful variety – Sauvignon Blanc - is much beloved and eminently approachable, so this phenomenon shows no signs yet of abating.
We were on our way to see Matt Thompson – flying wine maker extraordinaire – who now makes wines all over the world but who is originally from this region and who now consults widely here. He has recently become involved here with Delta and Tinpot Hut wines, made on an estate purchased in 2000 by four partners – of which he is one and David Gleave of Liberty wines is another. Principally, their aim is to make great Pinot Noir in Marlborough – something they feel that the region is entirely capable of. They are however doing Sauvignon as well with plans for other varieties – notably Syrah from Hawkes Bay, as well as Pinot Gris and Riesling.
The Delta vineyard is situated at the mouth of the Waihopai valley to the west of Blenheim, where a steep sided, triangular hill divides the valley in two. There are vineyards on the flats where the Delta Vineyard label Pinot Noir is planted and those on the hills where altitudes get up to 175 metres. The clay soils here, plus the particular climatic conditions which make Marlborough so suited to Sauvignon – lots of sunshine, warm days, cool nights, lots of cool, dry wind and crystal clear light – make this a heaven for Pinot as well, Matt believes.
Pinot needs low vigour soils and Sauvignon Blanc is completely the opposite. Their Sauvignon is therefore planted nearer to the sea where the soils are very well drained gravels while the Pinot is planted further inland on clay slopes – even lower vigour than the flat. The wind here is amazingly strong bringing cool sea air (the sea around here is very deep and consequently very cold) which means that there is no downy mildew but which also means that flowering and fruit set can be problematic when interrupted by very gusty days.
This wind means that vineyard design– always an important aspect to consider – is even more vital here.
We drove through the vineyards while Matt gave us a commentary on his vines – all still remarkably young. Those for the Marlborough Pinot are mere saplings at 2 years old (and in my opinion that is obvious from the taste). Finally we came upon a sight that would have been hugely welcome if I were not so sick and tired of eating and drinking. Even so, it was rather glorious.
A long trestle table, resplendent in white linen with baskets of fresh bread, cutlery and bunches of Sauvignon as decoration had been set between two rows of Pinot. Another table set slightly apart buckled slightly under the weight of salads, cold meats, hot and cold smoked salmon and a variety of cheeses.
Because of the great energy and enthusiasm of the wind, lunch was a lively affair. We had to make frequent dives for our napkins, the base of our wine glasses, stray chunks of bread etc to stop them from being transported across the hill we were on the crest of. A pine forest to our right meant that it was considerably less blowy where we were than elsewhere, but it was still somewhat of a challenge. Trying to taste wine, take notes and hold onto my salad leaves meant that I had more than enough to be getting on with.
Please note that as these notes were made in difficult circumstances, they are not exactly comprehensive.
2006 Delta Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
Honeyed, but not overly tropical fruit with a good smoky edge and finish. Fine but really not outstanding. Apparently the fruit in this is often very tropical – something it is not really showing today although there is underlying richness.
2006 Tinpot Hut Sauvignon Blanc
A lot leaner and less honeyed than above and much better for it. Fresh grapefruit with not a trace of confected pear drop ( a problem at this price point from here). Great length and smoky development and good finish.
2006 Delta Marlborough Vineyard Pinot Noir
This is the wine from 2 year old vines which I think is a challenge too far – even for a winemaker of Matt Thompson’s talents. There is some pleasing fresh cranberry fruit here but it is very lacking in intensity. All the components are in place though and I am sure that in time, this will be good wine. The vines just need to do a bit of growing up first.
2005 Hatters Hill Pinot Noir
Much better grip than the Delta with subtle aromatics and good, scented red and black cherry fruit. There is freshness right to the finish – no coffee notes as they don’t use any toasted oak and this is actually very refreshing.
After lunch I walked through the rows, admiring again how green the green and how blue the blue of the sky looks in this amazingly lucid light. I may not like Marlborough very much, but I am increasingly smitten with New Zealand.
After lunch, we were on our way to see Kim Crawford. This may be entirely unprofessional of me but I am not going to record this visit. Firstly, by this stage I was feeling completely and utterly exhausted. Secondly, I really do not like the wines of Kim Crawford – I never have, and the tasting we did there only confirmed that I pretty much still loathe them. Thirdly, while he has built an amazingly successful brand, this is simply not the sort of wine making I am much interested in. This is large scale – no where near the million plus cases of some of the worlds big monster brands, but certainly big. No-one seemed to know for sure, but estimates were around the 250,000 mark for production here and certainly visually, it was much more factory like than anywhere else we had been – monster tanks, rows of presses lined up etc etc.
Now, many very good, eminently drinkable wines are made in ‘factories’ such as this, they don’t all come from quirky little wooden shacks by a long shot. However, I do struggle that much harder to find real character and individuality in wines produced on this scale and at the moment I simply don’t have the energy to go into detail about something I really fundamentally dislike.
Post tasting we were dropped off in our palatial apartments (they do like apartments here) and I flopped on the sofa where I would happily have paid a large amount of money (if I had not lost my purse) to stay for the evening.
This was not to be though – 45 minutes later we were in the function room of the place we were staying for dinner with Kim and various members of his team.
I did manage to sneak away relatively early at around 10pm and managed about an hours work back at my room before collapsing into bed again.
