In the World of Wine there are things that intrigue me, things that excite me, definitely, some annoying things, and now and again perhaps even a few things that really get me worked up. I thought it’d be fun as the end of the year approaches, to discuss a few of those subjects. Some might be material for a longer piece in the future, some just passing observations. Here are some of my random wine rants.
Something that intrigues me: PiWis (aka hybrids).
Before I went to Netherlands to visit a dying friend earlier this year, I had no idea what a PiWi was and my general opinion of hybrids in wine was pretty low. This was mostly based on the written opinions of other wine writers rather than any actual experience and if I had stopped to reflect more deeply, I would have realised that what experience I did have should have led me to question that view. In the far north of New Zealand I’d tried wine from the French hybrid Chambourcin and it was pretty decent. Anyway, my Dutch friend informed me he was living in a vineyard and on doing some research I found it was planted in a mix of the new PiWis and the regular vinifera varietal Pinot Noir. I did get to try the wines when I visited. They were interesting and one in particular I rather liked, a 2023 Johanniter. You can read the full account here.
Before I go on, I should explain that PiWis are more sophisticated hybrids than earlier simple crosses, that aim to produce wines that taste like they are made from vitis vinifera varieties, but with the incorporation of non-vinifera genes to provide disease resistance. Many of the early hybrids had a deservedly bad rap for producing wines with “foxy” flavours, but the work to develop these new PiWis is proceeding with some urgency due to:
- Popular demand for reduction in the use of agricultural chemicals
- Fungicide resistance by common fungus diseases like powdery mildew which are highly adaptable and can quickly develop genetic variants to survive fungicide application
- Increased disease pressure due to changing weather conditions associated with global warming
- Demand from growers and consumers for wine produced locally in regions with marginal or even extreme climates for traditional varieties.
Johanniter vines at Saalhof in Netherlands
I wouldn’t say that my visit to Wognum in the Netherlands made me a PiWi advocate but it certainly got my attention to the work going on and yes, began to intrigue me. More recently I visited Vancouver Island in Canada and discovered PiWis playing an important but not exclusive role in the wine industry there. While none of the PiWi wines I tasted risked displacing the fine vinifera wines I enjoy tasting and writing about, the majority were quite acceptable everyday drinking standard. You can read more about that here.
I don’t know whether there is a lot of more positive writing about PiWis recently or that my recently aroused interest has just enhanced my ability and willingness to take notice, but there is no shortage of current appreciation. Just last month this appeared in Decanter, and in June another. Could Piwis eventually produce truly fine wine? Well American wine writer Elaine Chukan Brown certainly thinks it’s possible and made her case back in 2023. I am slowly beginning to think she is right.
Also intrigues me – somatic chimeras
Earlier this year I was picking grapes for Ata Rangi at harvest and came across these fascinating mutations of Pinot Gris, one to Pinot Blanc, one back to Pinot Noir.
Pinot Chimeras
On the left bunch there are Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc berries on the same bunch. The white grapes have a mutation which lacks the anthocyanin gene completely. On the right we have a Pinot Gris bunch where some berries have reverted to Pinot Noir (Pinot Gris is actually a Pinot Noir mutation). These somatic chimeras occur at the epidermal cell layer of the grape, in other words the inside of the grape may be the same. This is all due to the genetic instability of the Pinot family. In some areas, such as Alsace the occurrence of these “Pinot fleck” somatic chimeras is prized for the complexity it brings to the wine made from these grapes.
Something that annoys me: wine bottle shapes and weights.
Yes, I know, those who do read my blogs regularly have heard me say this before. If I had my way the only permitted wine bottle would be a lightweight version of the standard Bordeaux bottle. And none of those cheeky variants with the slightly wider shoulders! Bordeaux bottles stack in the open shelves of my wine cellar beautifully. Unlike the Burgundy/Syrah bottles that teeter and wobble precariously and need little wedges of foam inserted at odd points in the stack to stop them falling out! Those bottles really annoy me. And while I will admit the Alsace/Mosel bottle is aesthetically attractive, it performs no better in a bottle stack. Sadly, there is no hint of likely progress on this score.
And out with those crazy heavy bottles. Apart from the obvious ecological unsoundness of shipping heavy bottles, they are just a pain to carry anywhere. No, a heavy bottle does not make your wine seem more prestigious, it just makes you look like sadly out of touch. Lightweight glass bottles please! Thankfully, due to the steady prodding of wine critics like Jancis there is some real progress being made on this score!
This excites me – new wines from my favourite producers!
I was thrilled to taste the new release 2024 Chenin Blanc from Ata Rangi recently. My first tasting just after it was bottled was already convincing, lovely Golden Delicious Apple and sherbet aromas and a richly textural palate with flavours of apple, cantaloupe and almonds. A month later so much more profound, having settled down with a distinct lemon wax edge on the palate, this is a wine that will age for more than a decade and I can’t wait to try it again in five years (which will come only too soon!).
Barrel tasting with Paul Mason, Nga Waka Winemaker
It's a joy to work cellar door occasionally at another Martinborough Winery – Nga Waka and they have just released the Home Block and Lease Block Pinot Noirs from the stunning 2024 vintage. The Home Block from younger vines has a distinctly lifted florality and a fruity, dark cherry palate, while the Lease Block has beautifully silky tannins and a lovely savoury character. But what really gets my anticipatory juices flowing are the yet to be released Chenin Blanc and Gamay Noir wines. I have tasted these in barrel and both knocked my socks off! Probably a March release and I am hanging out for them!
Another excitement - visiting an unfamiliar wine region!
The world of wine is vast and expanding. I am so privileged to live in Martinborough where we have so amazing and accessible wines. It would be easy just to settle in and enjoy what I already know. But I am driven to seek out new wine experiences, to challenge my assumptions and to explore new vistas. In 2026 I will visit the Granite Belt in Queensland Australia, in March, I will explore the wines of Sicily more deeply and in September, Hungary and Croatia. I am busting to visit the various great wine regions of China, and Hokkaido Japan. I long to reacquaint myself with wine ventures in the unlikely locales of India and Thailand. This year I have visited Mornington in Victoria, Australia, Mosel in Germany, Barossa and Adelaide Hills in South Australia. So much still to discover!
Yabby Lake Restaurant and Cellar Door Outlook in Mornington, Victoria, Australia.
What really gets me worked up – corporate retreat from sustainable winegrowing and destruction of iconic brands.
Winegrowing is a tough business. My dear departed friend Mike Finucane often joked that the best way to end up with a small fortune in the wine business is to start with a large one. Success often attracts corporate interest, so too does failure, whether in finances or succession planning. The sales pitch is irresistible: investment for a more modern winery, a more attractive cellar door, retention of winemaking independence, capital for marketing. But when the honeymoon is over, too often the marriage is disappointing. I wrote an article just months ago about how NZ leads the world in sustainable viticulture. Imagine my chagrin to find that the current corporate owners of NZ’s most iconic and globally recognised wine brand Villa Maria, i.e. Indevin have abandoned organic viticulture in 100 of its 130 hectares of organic vines back to conventional farming. Similarly, Vinarchy, owner of Brancott Estate have reverted half of their organic vineyards back to conventional viticulture.
The economics of organic viticulture are not straight-forward. The decision to go organic is seldom driven by simple financial motives. But there is enough evidence to demonstrate that organics can – as it ultimately must – be financially sustainable. It’s not a simple formula. Some form of product premiumisation is required, as exemplified in Bordeaux by Chateau Latour, owned by Kering Group, and Ch. De La Dauphine owned by Cegedim and in Provence with Ch Galoupet owned by LVMH. But it seems many corporates in the wine world have neither the patience nor the marketing ability to build strong premium brands. The business strategy looks like a race to the bottom of a volume-driven wine commodity business, accompanied by retreat from environmental improvement commitments, brands destruction and badly treated staff.
With Vinarchy, the mega entity in wine assets formed from Accolade Wines and Pernod Ricard’s Australian, New Zealand and Spanish assets, we are witnessing one of the most aggressive corporate consolidations in Australia’s wine industry history. Winemaking is being centralised in two industrial hubs, one “premium” in Barossa. The other mass market at Berri Estates in Riverland. Meanwhile historic wineries are being closed or stripped of production including for example, St Hallet and Hardy’s Tintara. Vinarchy will apparently drop up to 50 brands many of which are part of Australia’s winemaking heritage in its quest for low-cost production.
No longer with us, iconic NZ brands and outstanding wines, loss much-mourned
Similar brand consolidation occurred with Indevin’s takeover of Villa Maria. Vidal Estate and then Esk Valley, both iconic brands in New Zealand wine history with highly regarded premium products and talented winemakers have been eliminated. Meanwhile the Villa Maria flagship Ngakirikiri is not in my view being successfully promoted, and has remained the same price for a decade, whilst Te Mata’s flagship Coleraine is promoted annually with great fanfare and has sustained a steady upward price trajectory.
Indevin’s Villa Maria strategy looks to me like a classic commodity producer’s cost-cutting. Leveraging bulk supply chain initiatives like bulk shipping and UK bottling should improve EBIT per litre in the short term and even has some environmental benefit in CO2 reduction. But it doesn’t build consumer brand loyalty and erosion of the emotional premium attached to NZ origin really worries me. Bulk and own-supply chains teach retailers to see you as interchangeable, and those big retail chains are themselves engaged in relentless value extraction. Looks to me like a path to a downward spiral.
Whether Indevins’s staff layoffs and role cuts at Mangere and the move to UK bottling have actually delivered short-term financial improvement is unclear as Indevin does not publish revenue, volume or margin data. I am dubious, but much more dubious about the long-term viability of the strategy, versus the slow work of creating durable value through long-term brand equity, pricing power and regional distinctives.
You’d be right if you discern some passionate outrage about these close-to-home events. The commitment to steady progress on the environmental issues of winemaking has to be values-driven, which then powers the work of making those initiatives financially sustainable. If finance is a-priori in sustainability initiatives, there is a risk they will be severely underdone and amount to little more than greenwashing.
Similarly, while it would be naïve to think that the current wine production glut can all be premiumised, too much of this recent corporate activity in the wine industry looks like a race to the bottom of ever diminishing returns. Wine-lovers like me don’t buy wine as a commodity. We buy the legacy, the history, the winemaker’s passion, the environmental commitments, the terroir, the personal relationships.
To all my readers and especially subscribers, I wish you all a Merry Christmas with responsible but delightful drinking. Quality always beats quantity and what better time to open that special bottle than a Christmas shared with loved ones.
About the author.
My lifelong passion for wine has been deepened through international wine travel, formal wine study (WSET3) and a career in adult learning. Through my Martinborough-based business in New Zealand, wineinsights, I provide exceptional wine tour, wine-tasting and wine education experiences for wine lovers and enthusiasts. My expertise is further enriched by my role as cellarmaster for the Martinborough Wine and Food Society, in New Zealand’s renowned Pinot Noir region and my strong wine industry connections.
If you enjoyed this weekly blog, you can subscribe for free, and also book a private Wairarapa wine tour using the contact form, or just email info@wineinsights.org. To see all my daily content follow me on Facebook.
Add comment
Comments