Central Otago for Asia

Introduction

Throughout 2009 I seem to have seen a lot of New Zealand winery faces in Singapore.  I suspect this is partially due to the necessary layover for antipodeans en-route to Europe or the Middle East.  But apart from opportunistic re-fueling stopovers, the Kiwis are also getting switched on to the potential for growing market share of their wines around Asia and they’re making some impressive inroads.

Of the 643 wineries in New Zealand only around 250 of these actively export their wines and roughly 10% of these exports go to Asia.  Though this may seem small, Asian market share is rapidly expanding with the FOB value of New Zealand wines exported there growing by nearly 30% year ending June 2009.  Segregating the major Asian markets it’s interesting to see how New Zealand wines are increasingly successful in Asia with a direct correlation to proximity.  Moving up through Asia from Down Under, Singapore with its tiny population of 4.8 million is New Zealand’s largest market, topping a million cases to the year end June 2009.  The popularity of New Zealand wines begins to trail off as we move north with the next largest market being Hong Kong followed by China then Japan and South Korea.  I’m only speculating but it does appear from the figures that proximity and the ability to intimately know and understand a country’s wines through holidays, visits and direct communication can have a significant positive impact on sales.  There is no better marketing tool than seeing and knowing New Zealand first-hand.

It therefore stands to reason that New Zealand wineries through their generic body New Zealand Winegrowers have recently been aiming a bit more marketing focus at their neighbors to the north.  In July 2009 I was invited to present some information about Asia’s wine markets at their annual Exporter’s Forum.  And in early November a group of wineries will be travelling through Asia with New Zealand Winegrowers, beginning in China, then hitting Singapore with a large trade / consumer tasting fair and finally heading onto the Hong Kong Wine and Spirits Fair for three days.

Generic efforts aside, by far the most powerful endorser of a region’s wine in Asia is a presentation of its highest caliber wines along with personally introduced winemaking anecdotes.  There really are no shortcuts to success here – the only way to win fans in the Far East is to get on the campaign trail.  And given that the recent collapse of USA and UK markets, it appears that’s exactly what a few bright trailblazers are doing.

After my Asian markets presentation in Christchurch in July / August 2009, I took the opportunity to migrate south to sniff out Asian / New Zealand compatibilities with a rather frigid mini-tour of Central Otago.  By frigid tour I refer to the winter temperatures rather than the character of the wines, which were anything but!  Of course I couldn’t see everyone in Central Otago so I tried to prioritize my selection of wineries opting to favour ones that I knew to have distribution in Asia. 

My visit began with an adrenaline rush, taking me to the perilously perched Chard Farm Winery - accessible only by negotiating a narrow cliff-edge road overlooking that infamous bungee-jump leap, Kawarau Bridge.  John Wallis, my fearless driver and Chard Farm’s winemaker, explained nonchalantly that the postman refuses to risk life and limb delivering to the winery anymore.  But by that point in the nail-biting journey it was far too late to protest as turning around clearly wasn’t an option. 

According to John around 100 labels are now produced in Central Otago, which is pretty impressive for a region that only began making wine commercially in 1987.  With so many shiny new names and regions but not much information available to differentiate them, John had kindly gathered for me a broad range of Central Otago wines to give me an overview. 

There are four major sub-regions in Central Otago including:  the Cromwell Basin, Gibbston, Alexandra / Clyde and Lake Wanaka.  Of these the Cromwell Basin is the most prolific, accounting for about 70% of production and home to many of Central Otago’s emerging superstars including Felton Road and Mt Difficulty.  That said it’s certainly not all about the Cromwell Basin.  Rippon, located at the breathtakingly beautiful holiday hot-spot of Lake Wanaka, is producing some very impressive Pinots and the mountainous Gibbston area is home to a few up-and-coming greats such as Chard Farm, Amisfield and Mount Edward.

John Wallis gave me his take on the key sub-regional differences in terms of the styles of Pinots they produce:

Gibbston

• Cooler ripening season
• Sometimes lends the Pinots a herbal character
• Mid-palate density

Cromwell Basin – Bannockburn

• Relatively warm and dry
• Gives nicely developed tannins
• Dark, blackberry fruits

Cromwell Basin – Lowburn

• Not as warm as Bannockburn
• Terraces above the plains
• Gives red fruits, spicy, aromatic characters and fine tannins

Cromwell Basin – Bendigo

• Very warm
• Chunky, big, dense wines
• Firm tannins

Lake Wanaka

• A bit cooler than the Cromwell Basin, similar to Gibbston
• A little herbaceous
• Less dense fruit

Alexandra

• Lighter soils
• Cooler ripening
• Bramble fruit characters and light, ethereal wines

Having survived the narrow pass back from Chard Farm, a little later I was being driven through Felton Road’s numerically named Blocks by Blair Walter, Felton Road’s winemaker.  This wasn’t my first meeting with Blair – I’d joined him a month earlier for lunch in Singapore with a mutual friend and a pretty special line-up of wines including a flight of six Block 5 Pinots.  During our first encounter, Blair had given me his run-down of Felton Road’s recent vintages:

2009

• A very good vintage in Bannockburn. 
• 2009 was a little cool in other areas of Central Otago but because Bannockburn is a bit warmer, Felton Road does very well in cooler vintages.

2008

• A good year and a big vintage in terms of crop.
• Smaller berries.
• It got cool towards the end of the growing season, allowing complexity to evolve.

2007

• Finest vintage they’ve ever seen.
• Poor fruit-set early in the year with yields down by 20-25%.
• Thick skins, aromatic wines.

2006

• Very warm, very early, very easy.
• The wines are perhaps a bit simple.
• Hot, big and ripe are the descriptors.

2005

• Really cold and wet during flowering.
• Yields were reduced to half of the normal crop.
• “Hen & Chicks” bunches (a mix of ripe and unripe berries) have lent an herbal / green streak to the wines.

2004

• Blair’s second most favourite vintage that they’ve had.
• A spring frost affected a lot of the vineyards, naturally reducing the yields.

2003

• A good, average vintage.
• Comparable to 2006 and 2008.
• Correct, balanced wines.

2002

• Classic vintage for Central Otago.
• A successful year producing dense wines.
• Low yielding harvest with thick skins.

During my visit to Felton Road in late July, Blair shared some insight into Bannockburn’s unique climate.  This is one of the hottest, coldest and driest areas of New Zealand.  Annual temperatures can range from 39 degrees C in the summer to -10 degrees C in winter.  Apart from being one of the warmest areas of cool-climate Central Otago, it is also the driest.  In fact it could be classified as a desert and the area was referred to by the former miner residents as “the heart of the desert”.  Felton Road only receives around 350 mm of rain per year, raining more or less evenly throughout the year and making irrigation essential.  But on the bright side, because the area is warmer there is less risk of frost than other areas of Central Otago.  Also the dry climate means there are rarely problems with mildew and rot rendering organic and biodynamic viticulture commercially viable.  Blair went onto to explain that in 2003 they began experimenting with biodynamics and by 2005 they were 100% biodynamic.  “Because of the biodynamic methods we’re now using we’re finding we’re getting much more consistency and evenness between vintages,” he pointed out.  In 2006 Felton Road applied to Demeter for biodynamic certification and they are now at the C2 phase (conversion year 2). 

My other visits in Central Otago included Mount Edward and Amisfield in Gibbston, Mt Difficulty in Bannockburn, Prophet’s Rock and Misha’s Vineyard in Bendigo and dinner at Rippon on Lake Wanaka.  Generally speaking the quality of the Central Otago Pinots is rather unsurprisingly most impressive.  Winemakers seem to be veering away from that inky, dense, fruit-bomb style that they were producing in the earlier days and the top-dogs are now making seamlessly balanced, elegant wines with aging potential. 

In terms of new plantings, Central Otago growers are going for the aromatic varietals in a big way…perhaps too big.  I tasted a lot of pretty good Riesling but I also sampled a lot of pretty ordinary Pinot Gris.  Given the continued popularity of Sparkling Wines in just about every wine market in the world including Asia, why doesn’t Central Otago consider producing more, especially in its cooler / marginal vineyards?  On this subject - one of the finest, most interesting wines I tasted during my visit was Rudi Bauer’s Quartz Reef Chauvet 2003 sparkling wine.  Based in the higher altitudes of Bendigo, Rudi makes tiny quantities of his vintage sparkling wine from 62% Pinot Noir and 38% Chardonnay, aged 3 years and 9 months on its lees and disgorged by hand.  Possessing the right balance of toast, nuts, pineapple fruit and creaminess with crisp acidity and very fine bubbles, I requested Rudi to send the entire stock of his next vintage release straight to his distributor in Singapore!

More than 80 Central Otago tasting notes can be found below and where possible I’ve included details of Asian distributors.  The Felton Road tasting notes include wines tasted in Singapore with Blair Walter in June 2009, prior to my visit with him in August 2009.  I’ve also added a few notes from a more recent tasting that I attended in Singapore with a Central Otago producer that is just beginning distribution in Asia, Lindis River.  A separate article will follow specifically about Misha’s Vineyard, a new project in Central Otago developed by an Asian based wine visionary by that very name.