Roger Parkinson, June 2012

A: the important of vine age on Pinot Noir quality?

R: Ah, it’s a good question, our oldest Pinot vines are now about 13 years and I’m not convinced that I’ve seen any age changes as yet, whether it will, there are variety differences I don’t know. Say for instance with Chardonnay we have a single vineyard wine which is a result, came about as a result of changes in the flavour profile, structure of the wine. That seemed to occur at 15 years. And whether that’s own rooted vines whether you would have the same impact and it would be the same with grafted as opposed to ungrafted I’m not sure, so I’m sort of expecting on the basis of what we saw on the Chardonnay that somewhere around about that time I might see some age effect.

A: So how important do you think vine age is on quality?

R: Again, I haven’t seen so much impact on quality; it’s as much on style as it is on quality from what I have seen with our Chardonnay block. And you can argue about what constitutes quality, if we see the same things we see in Pinot as we have in Chardonnay I’d expect to see less varietal contribution, the proportion of the wines character that you could attribute to varietal descriptors, if you like, diminishing. And the structural and textural elements I’d expect to see become more prominent in the wine. And I haven’t seen the same impact at all with the aromatic varieties; we also make Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling and nothing really stuck out whereas it was really pronounced with the Chardonnay the shift, not with the aromatics so much. Yet anyway, and those vines are now 22-23 years so, as I say with Pinot yet to see really. That’s about what the expectation would be.

A: So if you where speculating, what do you the possible reasons for the effect of vine age would be?

R: Well I have certainly noticed less vigour, at the same time whether that’s related, pass. I’m not convinced that it’s to do with deeper or broader root migration. I’m more of the view that it’s in some way or other the plant itself is at a different equilibrium, to me that suggests a better balance in terms of the different sinks in the vine. So as with young vines I do tend to think that you get a lot more resources going to vegetative growth and sugar development if you like, I think with age there is an evening out of that. The textural elements, again hard to know why other than in some way there is more phenolic development than in the earlier years but its hard to see any thing physically on the vine or in the timing. Phenology is unchanged; we are not seeing any difference in picking dates, budburst, flowering, any of those stages that you might look to see. So as I say I think there is fundamentally something going on in the vine to do with its own internal balances.

A: Anything else regarding vine age that we haven’t really covered?

R: Not really

A: Do you have any virus?

R: Certainly, but not with Pinot which is younger stuff, but certainly in the original planting on their own roots we see leaf roll 1 virus. We have Mendoza Chardonnay, and virus is known to be part of the story with it. Whether we have leaf roll virus 3 in the old plantings it’s a possibility but we are not seeing any delayed ripening or any of those things.

End of Interview.

The land of the long, white cloud has truly lived up to its name this growing season. At the end of February, Growing Degree Days (GDD) had reached a paltry 756 heat units. Nearly half way through March we have accumulated a further 50 heat units to  reach 806 heat units in total.  Looking at past years’ records I think we will be doing well to reach 1,000 units for the whole season. In the past twenty years only the Mt. Pinatubo-affected vintages of 1992 and 1993 have accumulated fewer heat units at 873 and 877 respectively. 1994 was the next coolest vintage with 1095 heat units.

My best guess therefore, is that stylistically, vintage 2012 is going to fall somewhere between 1993 and 1994. Both those earlier vintages were low-yielding and late-ripening. Crops this year look similarly small and I expect we will start picking three to four weeks later than normal, towards the end of April and in to May. We were fortunate in 1993 and 1994 that disease pressure was minimal and we will be relying on similar fortune in 2012 so we can hang the grapes out long enough to get them ripe.

Reflecting back on the 1993 and 1994 wines might give an idea of how the 2012 wines could turn out. 1993 was challenging with generally low sugars, high acids and “greener” flavours. Significant intervention was required in the winery including deacidification and chaptalisation(sweetening) and the wines, while flavoursome, were certainly at the austere end of the spectrum. 1994 was the better year, not outstanding but a good solid year with well-balanced, generous wines and with much less winery intervention required.

Hopefully the next 4-6 weeks will see enough sunshine to push us more towards comparisons with the 1994 vintage, touch wood!

Roger Parkinson
Nga Waka
Martinborough

That got me thinking about small wineries. Of the nearly 700 wineries in New Zealand, some 600-odd, including us, are in the “small” category (producing less than 22,000 cases). Of those 600-odd small wineries, around 450 are actually producing 2,000 cases or less each year. Most, if not all, of these small wineries will be family-owned and operated. I’m guessing that the exit strategy for most small wineries is similar to the contract growers described above i.e. sell profitably to a younger buyer in similar circumstances as they were when they started, and retire on the proceeds. Other alternatives include keeping it in the family for the next generation or selling to a another winery.

For the vast majority of the 450 wineries producing less than 2,000 cases, keeping it in the family or selling to another winery are not realistic options. On the one hand, a winery of that size is unlikely sustain an income for a new generation and at the same time fund the retirement of the founders, nor, on the other hand is it likely to have enough financial attraction or scale to appeal to, or to practically incorporate in to, another winery’s business. In the absence of a foreign investor cargo cult  that leaves the option of selling to a younger, adequately resourced, skilled and motivated buyer and the savage destruction of wealth wrought by the global financial crisis has dramatically drained that pool.

So, unless small winery profitability improves I fear that owners, when they wish to exit, are going to find themselves in the same predicament as the growers described above, either unable to find a buyer or unable to retire. Another aggravating factor is that the founders of many of our pioneering small wineries are from the large baby-boomer generation and will be looking to exit at the same time in the not-too distant future thus putting more pressure on finding a pool of potential buyers.

The likelihood, in my view, is that many small wineries will simply cease to exist. An inevitable part of the re-balancing/evolution of the wine industry maybe, but while necessary, I for one will mourn the loss of diversity, dreams and history such an extinction would represent.