THE 2009 HOT RED WINE EXPO – HAWKES BAY / BORDEAUX BLENDS,   SYRAH,  PINOT NOIR AND OTHER REDS


Geoff Kelly  MSc (Hons)


Hawkes Bay WineGrowers and the Hot Red Wine Expo
Hawkes Bay is one of the very few regions on earth that can produce red wines to compare with the magical beauty and delicacy of the great wines of Bordeaux and the Northern Rhone Valley.  They are delicate in the sense that at best,  they are floral and fragrant,  but they can have real substance too,  and be totally satisfying.  With the growing recognition of these facts,  the annual presentation of the Hawkes Bay WineGrowers' Hot Red wine-tasting roadshow has become a 'must-visit'.  

This year's Hot Red Wine Expo in the second week of July was the sixth,  it featured 26 wineries,  and was presented in Auckland,  Wellington and Christchurch.  The organisers report an increase of 6% in total attendance from last year,  and consider this year's Expo a great success – an event which is coming of age.  Wellington achieved the greatest number of attendees totalling 345 with public predominant,  and Auckland with its greater commercial base achieved a 40% increase in trade participants,  up to 157 people in that sector alone.  All told,  over 800 people visited the Hot Red Expo.  These numbers really say something about present interest in Hawkes Bay red wines,  when wine merchants all over the country currently report a generally diminishing interest in wine tastings and presentations.

There are 654 wineries registered with the Wine Institute / WineGrowers of New Zealand,  as at 30 June 2009.  83 of them are in Hawkes Bay,  and de facto belong to Hawkes Bay WineGrowers,  in terms of their website (www.winehawkesbay.co.nz) statement:  "All wineries and grape growers in Hawke's Bay are automatically members of Hawke's Bay Winegrowers Inc if they are levy payers to NZ Winegrowers."  They are listed with contact details on the website.  

Unfortunately,  not all 'members' choose to participate in all the association's activities.  The region does not always achieve quite the demonstrated unity of purpose among its wine producers that one would hope for in an industry which makes much of hospitality and fellowship.  For the Expo,  26 wineries participated,  though not all went to each centre.  Sadly,  high-profile wineries such as Sacred Hill and Te Mata Estate were not present.  Wine-lovers regret this greatly – they would relish the opportunity to compare their wines with other leaders.

Hawkes Bay Wineries exhibiting in the Hot Red Expo in Wellington:

Abbey Cellars	Matariki Wines
Alpha Domus	Mission Estate Winery
Ash Ridge Wines	Moana Park
Babich	Ngatarawa
Bridge Pa Vineyard	Paritua Vineyards
Church Road	Salvare
CJ Pask	Sileni Estates
Clearview Estate Winery	Squawking Magpie
Corbans	Trinity Hill
Craggy Range	Vidal Estate
Crossroads Winery	Villa Maria
Esk Valley Estate	Wishart
Lime Rock Wines

For information about the district,  though Hawkes Bay WineGrowers have their website with some district information,  member wineries,  activities etc,  they have not tackled the need for a comprehensive on-line resource describing the geography,  geology,  soils,  climate and history of the wine district,  the details of the grapes planted,  and the quality of recent vintages.  There are general statements,  but their site should be the first place to go in order to thoroughly background the district.  Hawkes Bay have been put in the shade by the Waiheke WineGrowers,  on this one,  so there is a worthwhile project to be achieved there.  The handiest public sources of info are (as for Waiheke Island):  Michael Cooper's Wine Atlas of New Zealand,  in its 2002 and 2008 editions,  Sue Courtney's summary for the district @ (www.wineoftheweek.com) and Cuisine's biennial Cuisine Wine Country,  for which a skeleton is on their website (www.cuisine.co.nz).

The Hawkes Bay wine district
Hawkes By has approximately 4900 ha of producing vineyards,  amounting to 17% of the national vineyard.  About 41% of the total is red varieties for red table wine as in the Expo,  with merlot at 1000-odd ha much the dominant grape,  about half the totals reds.  Merlot is followed by cabernet sauvignon,  syrah,  pinot noir (for table wine),  cabernet franc,  and malbec in rank order – all these exceed 100 ha.  Another 13 varieties comprise only 55 ha.  Hawkes Bay contains by far the largest area of Bordeaux blend (Hawkes Bay blend ) varieties in New Zealand,  and 68% by area of the syrah (2009 projection,  2008 New Zealand WineGrowers Statistical Annual).  The district totally dominates national achievements with both winestyles,  though Waiheke Island is offering a spirited challenge.  Nowhere else comes close.

The key factors that make the Hawkes Bay wine district of such compelling viticultural interest are the encircling mountains to the west,  the consequent low rainfall over much of the wine district,  and the warm but not baking hot summer temperatures.  For every day over 30 degrees,  the chance of the grape losing subtle aroma and flavour compounds in the vineyard,  of them being sun-baked out of the grape,  increases.  This is the simple reason why regions like Australia,  California and Washington State have difficulty competing in the beauty and subtlety components of international winestyles,  and instead must make a virtue out of size,  all too often with the wines subsequently re-made pseudo-aromatic by the excessive use of oak.  Annual rainfall for Hastings and Napier and a large part of the Heretaunga Plains where the vineyards lie is of the order of 800 mm per annum,  with on average about 200 mm of rain through the February to April ripening period.  These numbers are remarkably close to the totals for both Bordeaux and the Northern Rhone Valley.  The low total rainfall in Hawkes Bay is critical to vine health,  when compared with other plausible red wine parts of the country like Gisborne,  Auckland district and North Auckland,  in all of which humidity is much more likely to become excessive at some stage of the growing season.  

Heat summations for Hawkes Bay also closely match the French districts,  but heat summation is in one sense less important than the nature of the heat.  Coonawarra for example claims a heat summation similar to Bordeaux,  but in most years temperature spikes destroy the ultimate subtlety of the grapes (witness Australian,  even Coonawarra,  merlot),  no matter how much the locals call Coonawarra a cool-climate zone.  Cool-climate relative to where ?  

Another exciting aspect of the Hawkes Bay wine-growing scene is the diversity within the district.  In the late 1800s and into the early 1900s,  viticulture was centred on Taradale and thereabouts adjoining Napier,  and the Havelock district.  Now the centre of excitement is the Gimblett Gravels,  closely followed by the very best parts of the Ngatarawa Triangle.  These areas comprise the warmest and driest heart of Hawkes Bay.  The best sites in the well-established districts of Havelock North,  Fernhill,  Bridge Pa and the Tuki Tuki Valley are hot on their heels.  Bayview and Te Awanga are coastal outliers,  where apart from the The Terraces amphitheatre,  temperatures are a little too coastal and equable for consistently fine Hawkes Bay blends.  For the more peripheral districts such as Maraekakaho Valley,  Dartmoor Valley including Woodthorpe and Esk Valley (the river) the taste evidence is that these districts are not quite warm enough for producing red wines (or viognier) to the consistency of ripeness the export market needs (see discussion below on calibration).  There may be a few exceptional sites within these districts standing outside that generalisation,  and in years like 1998 these slightly cooler districts do come into their own.  But in terms of consistent achievement over the 10-year period,  doubt remains.  The truth or otherwise of climatic warming will be of pivotal interest to the future of viticulture and the varietal mix in these places.  Conversely there is great interest in chardonnay,  which may find a near-perfect home for example in the Dartmoor Valley,  as Sacred Hill's Rifleman has not only shown but confirmed.    

Beyond these districts there are exploratory plantings in a number of places,  including the geologically diverse hill country to the south.  In the cooler but at best equally dry c.800 mm annual rainfall regions in the Waipawa / Waipukurau / Takapau districts some 60 or so km SW of Hastings,  where there are limestone soil parent materials,  there are even hopes for pinot noir.  Lime Rock Wines near Waipawa has wines in the Expo,  and as these vines gain age,  some depth of varietal character is becoming evident,  sufficient to overturn the somewhat patronising views some of us have held about pinot noir quality in Hawkes Bay.  So while currently the Gimblett Gravels area is the head-line grabber in Hawkes Bay,  there are other sites of great interest.  And as I have commented previously in these pages,  it is probable that the Gimblett Gravels will in some years prove too warm for optimal varietal performance of both merlot and syrah,  if our winemakers accept the thesis that beauty comes before brawn in red wine making.  Thus far,  that goal is not everywhere agreed upon,  and it is an old-world view,  but the European export market is still a very worthwhile one.  

A combination of holdings on the Gravels,  and districts immediately peripheral to them,  covers all options,  and allows for the blending of finer wines than from one district alone.  This approach is certainly proving part of the superb re-emergence of the Church Road winery as one of the absolutely top wineries of the district.  Related to this is the increasing evidence that the bald and undefined assertions about the Gimblett Gravels being 3 degrees hotter than the adjoining Ngatarawa Triangle may be little more than indeed hot air.  There are too many green wines in this tasting allegedly drawn from Gimblett Gravels fruit,  and there are green wines reported from the Gravels in the challenging 2008 and 2009 vintages.  Further,  Te Mata Bullnose Syrah has in several recent vintages displayed a quality of physiological maturity matching in beauty if not size anything from the Gravels.  As always in wine,  the proof lies in the bottle,  not the publicity.  By physiological maturity I mean the alchemy by which organic acids,  carbohydrates and phenolic / tannin precursors ripen through the summer / autumn season via sunshine,  temperature and standard plant physiological processes into the sweet,  ripe-smelling and ripe-tasting compounds which give each fruit its characteristic aroma and flavour profile.  The chemistry of ripening is complex,  and does not need to be fully understood to be agreed to as a fact.  Anybody can tell the difference between a tree-ripened and perfectly fragrant Royal Gala apple and an early-picked coolstore one.

Recent Vintages
It is astonishing that to brief review,  neither Hawkes Bay WineGrowers or any winery in the district seems to have a detailed log of vintage conditions in the district for the last 20 years (say) on their website.  Surely this is the kind of information we need,  if we are to build up an image of Hawkes Bay (or New Zealand) being wine country.  Imagine Bordeaux without the ubiquitous vintage charts.  There are practical reasons for the lack of Hawkes Bay summaries,  not least of which is the near-impossibility of achieving one thumbnail impression for the district (as above).  But the benefits of a summary far outweigh the fish-hooks,  and this is an immediate task Hawkes Bay WineGrowers should be tackling,  as part of  a regional wine resources website.  

If one digs deeper into winery websites,  there is some info retrievable where the website has past Newsletters available.  Both Stonecroft and Te Mata (since 2005) are helpful in this respect,  the latter's website having at one stage been a model for the industry in the sense it says something about all back vintages of each wine.  There is still not the detail an enthusiast would wish for however.  Latterly Craggy Range has set the pace with exemplary info including cropping rate for every wine they have ever marketed,  and the Pernod-Ricard group too has satisfying detail for nearly all wines,  though not consistently up to date.  In sum,  however,  there is a tendency for wine companies to confuse reporting with marketing,  and to say that each vintage is a variation on very good,  irrespective.  Critical evaluation is therefore difficult.  

Gordon Russell at Esk Valley seems to be the only winemaker to have made some effort to extract a comparative vintage quality statement onto the firm's website,  but it refers only to The Terraces vineyard at Bayview,  and only to the years in which The Terraces wine has been produced.   In several cases vintages there have been high quality when the rest of the Bay has generally considered results modest,  and vice-versa.  So it is of limited application.  Latterly,  Craggy Range set out to summarise each vintage (as opposed to wine) for their website,  but have managed 3 vintages only in the 9 they have produced wine.  I hope this nudge will encourage them to complete the record back to say 2000.  So any attempt here to summarise recent vintages in Hawkes Bay must be an arm-waving exercise only,  and the column numbers refer only to the reds.  

The tabulation below aims firstly to provide a context for the wines reported on,  and then to complement Michael Cooper's excellent annual Buyer's Guide to New Zealand Wines book reports (not all of which I have) in a handy web form,  but noting all the limitations that generalising for such a diverse district must entail.  Winemakers contributed critically to preparing this chart,  which I appreciate enormously,  but the complexity of the district and particularly the localised nature of rainstorms is such that no one winemaker is now likely to be happy with the summation.  There are always so many exceptions,  for example where a winemaker halves the crop load in a cool year,  in pursuit of excellence.  My stance below is a little more inclined to the absolute quality of the kind of wines people cellar,  rather than simply the commercial success of the vintage.  Feedback is welcomed (address at foot of home page,  below the Index of articles).

Vintage Ratings for the last 10 years in Hawkes Bay – for discussion:

2009	6 – 9	Variable summer,  wet patch starting 28 Feb.,  some hassles for chardonnay.  Then March cooler than ideal,  merlots good to great but some cabernets fell behind.  April better for reds,  like 2008 some report better cabernet,  others report best merlot ever,  so hard to generalise.  The best of the Hawkes Bay / Bordeaux blends may match or even exceed 2007.  Persistence of leafyness in some cabernets and syrahs reported,  even some Gimblett Gravels,  a worry.  Bit early yet,  so wider span.
2008	5 – 7	Spring frosts,  varying impact,  warm dryish summer but easterlies dominant = humidity.  So difficult vintage,  uneven ripening and conflicting reports,  some report good cabernet but on average merlots better physiological maturity.  Syrah quality localised,  some very good in '07 style from Triangle area.  No Reserve / top tier wines from some wineries due to green notes,  but perhaps like 05 & '06 will be occasional notable exceptions.
2007	7 – 9+	Average temperatures but very dry season (driest 10 years),  near-perfect for many sites,  with full physiological maturity achievable at attractive (13.5%) alcohols in many appropriately-cropped reds.  Syrahs soft and rich,  but perhaps not as aromatic as best '05 / '06.  Fine whites too.  May end up best vintage of decade.
2006	6 – 8+	Warmest year of decade,  localised / unpredictable rain as in March 2005 but not as heavy,  some superb wines e.g. Church Road & Villa surpass 2005 in Hawkes Bay blends.  The best syrahs including Trinity Homage,  Villa and Church Road may be the most powerful of decade (9).  Many reds fractionally lighter than best 2005s,  described as fragrant,  ripe and stylish.  Some fine chardonnays.
2005	6 – 8+	Best excellent,  but patch-wise rain (up to 80mm near Roy's Hill 18 March) significantly reduced final quality for some growers,  despite dry subsequently.  Nonetheless the top reds and particularly cabernet-dominant from selected wineries inc. Church Road exceptional.  Syrahs aromatic and fragrant.  Score more for better wines,  some average.  Critical selection needed for cellaring.
2004	4 – 6+	Second coolest vintage of decade,  but great Indian summer.  Best Gimblett Gravels reds fragrant and attractive (7),  but red fruits more than black.  Beyond Gravels,  many leafy reds developing too rapidly.  Conversely,  some stunning whites,  marvellous chardonnays (9) and gewurzs !
2003	2 – 4	For many growers,  severe and widespread frost 5 Oct. dominated the coolish,  dry but difficult season to follow.  Small crops,  but some reasonably good medium-weight red wines.
2002	7 – 9	Modest early season and damp early summer,  then great Indian autumn gave best quality and quantity vintage since 1998,  but high alcohols – referred to locally by some as the Californian vintage.  At best superb reds,  but many too big.  Not the technical knowledge then as now,  but the best cellaring well.  Some whites also too big.
2001	3 – 5	Widespread frost 20 Nov,  difficult summer,  coolest year of decade but not good for chardonnay even so.  Some settled spells March / April but botrytis pressure,  uneven ripening,  mostly a small crop of lean red wines,  now near their peak,  but some better where viticulture exceptional.
2000	6 – 8	As for Bordeaux,  not a perfectly dry season (70 mm 9 & 10 April) yet where viticulture good a plentiful and stylish vintage,  with very good wines if cropping rates were conservative.  Reasonable alcohols,  and Bordeaux style in the best blends too.  Score given is more the better wines.

More calibration of our wines to overseas wine standards needed    
Reflecting on the entrants in this Hot Red Wine Expo as I wrote them up,  and tasted and re-tasted them,  a key issue is the number of not-quite-perfectly-ripe red wines,  when compared with good regional wines of Europe.  All told,  if one is acutely critical,  around 21% of the wines show some suggestion of leafy,  stalky or otherwise green notes through their bouquet and / or flavour profiles.  This has been an issue in New Zealand red wines for the last 40 years,  in other words the entire recent Vitis vinifera era.  It was a major problem through the 1970s and 1980s when too many winemakers were not familiar with the characteristic flavours of the traditional wine-world's better representative wines,  and continued well into the 1990s.  Nowadays,  with so many widely-travelled and highly-qualified winemakers,  and the vast strides in viticulture in the last 15 years,  plus the quality of the 2007 vintage in Hawkes Bay,  under-ripeness should not be so much an issue,  so this result is unwelcome.  A second too-common failing is the number of reductive wines,  where around 10% of the wines show some suggestions (or more) of this dulling defect.  

First however,  a few words of background,  since our wine industry has a tendency to listen only to "overseas" opinion on our wines and wine practices,  irrespective of the length of experience of the commentator.  I have been studying and cellaring the cabernet / merlot red wines of Bordeaux since the 1962 vintage,  and northern Rhone syrah and the wines of Burgundy for not much less (1969).  Throughout that time I have always had Australian and New Zealand wines to hand,  to compare and contrast.  After more than 40 years of written wine evaluation,  fairly clear ideas about climatic potential for and optimal ripeness in our key Hawkes Bay grape varieties do develop.  And reading explicit,  consistent and experienced commentators such as Jancis Robinson and Steven Spurrier reinforces a European-palate approach to wine,  as discussed below.  Adding in Robert Parker (sensu stricto) regularly helps refine and focus all those ideas remarkably well,  and splices in another climatic tangent.  

This Hawkes Bay Hot Red Wine Expo offers an exceptional opportunity to report on 132 red wines of the district.  The objectivity of such a report is likely to be enhanced by the reviews being based on rigorously blind comparative assessment of the wines immediately after the Expo,  where tasting is not influenced by winemaker comment or hospitality.  

Leafy,  stalky and greenish-tinged wines – perceiving ripeness  
Hawkes Bay has a fabulous red wine grape climate,  but like all the finest (in the sense of wine complexity,  not size) climatic zones (Bordeaux,  Burgundy,  the Northern Rhone),  Hawkes Bay is marginal for the key varieties of the cabernet family including merlot etc,  as well as syrah.  The vintage chart shows that 2005 and 2006 were pretty good vintages,  and 2007 was an exceptionally good season in the Bay.  There can therefore be little excuse for the excessive number of wines in this Expo which are being exhibited at premium prices,  yet are under-ripe and green to varying degrees,  with leafy or stalky characters noticeable and sometimes obtrusive.  [ At least,  some of the worst are not 2007s. ]  The two (or three) principal reasons for this dilemma I suggest are either:  too many proprietors are not benchmarking their efforts alongside internationally acknowledged wines regularly enough (and they do not have to be expensive wines);  or,  proprietors cannot wean themselves off cropping rates owing more to historical New Zealand cropping practice than contemporary European AOC (or equivalent) vinifera practice.  Heavy cropping rates mean there is little hope of the grapevine taking so many berries through to full physiological flavour maturity and tannin-ripeness as opposed to sugar-ripeness.  This deficiency is made more acute where water management or climate permits (or encourages) vegetative vine growth to continue much beyond veraison.  Where vegetative growth continues,  the vine is not putting all its efforts into ripening the fruit,  and even a reduced crop may still retain green notes.  In some cases,  all these reasons will apply.    

Style-leading wineries such as Craggy Range,  where the wines almost across the board show premier and grand cru levels of physiological maturity,  ripeness and concentration,  actually publish their cropping rates consistently on their website.  Many wineries don't.  Wines which appear to display the symptoms of an excessive cropping rate or sub-optimal viticulture precluding fine wine quality can be recognised in the notes that follow from terms such as leafyness,  stalkyness,  lack of concentration etc.

To make the problem worse,  some of the wines priced at premium prices in this Expo are clearly under-ripe,  by any reasonable international standard.  It would be great if some of these proprietors perused the en primeur lists of wine merchants such as Maison Vauron,  Wine Direct and Glengarry all in Auckland.  There they will find perhaps with some shock that there are beautiful cru bourgeois and lesser classed growth Bordeaux wines known the world over available for less than some of the top-of-their-range but indifferent wines reviewed in this report.  To compound the problem,  some of these under-ripe New Zealand wines have won gold and other elevated medals and endorsements in this country.  It is not only winemakers therefore:  too many New Zealand wine judges and commentators are simply not sufficiently well-enough versed in what constitutes ripeness amongst the reference wines of the world – the evidence is in their results.  There is nothing personal in this at all.  It is simply a matter of being more familiar with the wines beyond one's back door,  and particularly with the benchmark wines,  and therefore striving for better wines in New Zealand – rather than adopting a winemaker's estimation of achieved wine quality.

It has long been apparent simply from the relatively few winemakers who do regularly attend imported wine tastings,  that the style leaders in this country's wine industry taste a lot of imported wine.  As I have commented before,  no winemaker can make better wine than he or she has regularly tasted and understood.  But how is this tasting 'education' to be achieved,  where winemakers are either unaware,  or will not spend the money to taste other people's wines ?  This is a task for New Zealand WineGrowers and its regional subsidiaries to be tackling urgently,  I suggest.  Long ago,  when what is now the Air New Zealand judging was the National Wine Competition held via the support of the Department of Trade & Industry,  after the judging there were winemakers' workshops supported by the Department to try and learn from the judging impressions and results.  Sometimes overseas judges brought tasting wines with them,  and presented tastings.  Very rarely indeed,  New Zealanders were asked to prepare and present tastings along the lines discussed in this report.  This is a theme that merits revisiting.

I have therefore commented regularly where the ripeness dimension is lacking in a wine,  in the hope some proprietors will take more active steps to secure en primeur what are described as the useful and well-priced wines from the 2008 Bordeaux vintage.  While the actual 2008 en primeur offers have now closed,  merchants usually have some uncommitted stock.  And similar principles apply to pinot noir and syrah,  despite our initial export success with the former.   As we more and more seek to expand our export wine base beyond sauvignon blanc,  there is this urgent need,  as I see it,  for both winemakers and wine judges to undertake far more 'calibration' tastings against the acknowledged reference wines of the world.  Specifically for the red varieties,  there is an imperative need for all winemakers to be familiar with and understand what the rest of the world considers to be appropriate ripeness in red wines.  The present Expo shows this is not the case now.  

This understanding can be simply achieved by buying and cellaring the same wines that highly reliable tasters such as Steven Spurrier and Jancis Robinson are tasting and reporting on regularly in London (via Decanter magazine and in the case of Robinson,  her subscription website,  and then,  as opportunity offers,  comparing notes.  Regularly reading the assessments of these people is as important as tasting the wines,  yet again,  remarkably few winemakers seem to follow the top winewriters (unless their own wines are mentioned).  It is astonishing just how much can be learnt and even assimilated about winestyle from reading alone,  if the task is approached in an acutely focussed and empathetic mode.  It is indeed possible to taste vicariously,  but only with writers who use words accurately and consistently.  [ Note the Decanter panel reviews written by other than Spurrier do not qualify.]  But needless to say,  the best results are achieved when words and wine are presented together.

For such tastings,  candidate wines need not be only the expensive ones.  In one sense,  for the cabernet / merlots say,  more can be learnt from the better cru bourgeois than the classed growths,  since the former are more the wines of the reasonably informed everyday marketplace,  where we seek to compete (and are climatically exceptionally well placed to do so).  A few of the latter are needed as well,  but not at the highest level where value is all too often lacking.  

For those who are already in tune,  such comparative tastings should be fun,  and for others,  such tastings should open intellectual doors to a new,  riper and more challenging world.  It is imperative we do not undermine the growing overseas reputation for New Zealand wines including now our best reds,  by also allowing under-ripe and variously leafy / stalky / green wines to go overseas.  A few bad reviews for our reds can undo years of effort by internationally-switched-on companies.

In the above discussion I specifically suggest European wine-writers for determining the style best suited to our wines.  They are more attuned to temperate-climate viticulture.  But this statement immediately needs qualifying,  for it is only in the last generation that British winewriters have evolved from a generally woolly style of writing to the much more focussed work the best practitioners display today.  This is a result solely of the influence of the American Robert Parker,  who is in practical terms the first winewriter to be writing more for the consumer,  rather than as part of the commercial wine establishment with its often too-benign slant.  Further,  he uses words in a highly consistent way,  a gift few winewriters have (especially when they venture into semi-technical terms).  In terms of the two winestyles Hawkes Bay is most famous for,  Parker without qualification sets the pace,  for Bordeaux and Rhone red wines are his favourites.  

Reading Parker is therefore essential,  but with the caveat that all warm-climate winewriters carry a lot of climatic baggage with them,  because they tend to be habituated to big wines.  So while he is quick to tell us when our red wines have green notes or thin textures,  he is not so astute at picking up the subtle floral delicacies of fine wines from more temperate viticultural climates.  He is not so well-regarded for his pinot noir assessments,  for example.  Sadly,  to judge from some of the descriptors employed on back labels of New Zealand wines,  too many of our winery people read only American or American-influenced wine reviews.  The last thing we need in New Zealand is any desire to make warm-climate winestyles,  or to adopt American or Australian notions of desirable wine size or style.  Our wines need to be about finesse,  not size.  Thus to optimise our wine export endeavours,  we need to differentiate ourselves from Australian wine as completely and totally as possible.  European rather than American mentors are better suited to our needs,  therefore.

Reductive wines and the role of Wine Judgings
The other issue needing discussion is the frequency of reductive wines,  if 10% of the wines in this Expo show some signs of the defect.  The difficulty here is that individual thresholds to hydrogen sulphide (and the myriad more complex molecules derived from it) vary enormously from taster to taster,  and hence from winemaker to winemaker.  There is a tendency for wine people who are insensitive to reduced sulphurs to pooh-pooh the concerns of the more acute.  The simple fact is,  there are a significant number of consumers who are sensitive to reduced sulphurs,  even if they don't know the right words.  Comments such as the wine is 'heavy',  or 'I can't smell anything',  are warning signs.  With the swing to screwcaps,  a key reason for concern is,  wines that go into bottle reductive are much less likely to develop harmoniously in bottle.  The evidence so far is that wines under screwcap are much less likely to bury their reduction,  whereas if the problem is minor,  wines under cork do resolve their sulphur over the 5 and 10 years period due to oxygen ingress.  

Over the decades I have deliberately cellared reductive wines in a spirit of inquiry,  to see what happens for myself.  As above,  unless the reduction is minor they simply stay reductive,  and become more leathery or rubbery as well.  Cos d'Estournel went through a long phase of tending reductive,  for example (though few were game to say so),  before it became the 'sweet' glamour-puss it is today.  The international wine world out there is thinking about sulphurs and reduced sulphurs in wines a lot more now (after decades of indifference in Europe),  and we need to remove the blinkers and be thinking too.  Too many wines in this Hawkes Bay batch are reductive (discussed further in the reviews),  yet have won contemporary gold and other medals.  There is a critical judging issue here which needs to be acknowledged.

One relevant issue facing wine judgings is the growing tendency for the whole judging process to be subverted by commercial interests – with the unstated goal of the sale of more wine.  As is becoming apparent from both the Waiheke report and now this one,  we in New Zealand are much too much influenced by overseas judgings,  and particularly latterly the London International Wine Challenge,  some of the results of which are laughable (see the 2007 Trinity Hill Syrah Hawkes Bay review).  Yet New Zealand winemakers,  trading on the colonial insecurity (yes,  still) of the New Zealand wine consuming public,  are quoting these results as if they were holy writ.  Britain is not (or scarcely,  champagne-styles excepted maybe if global warming is true) a wine-producing country,  so the wine judgings there often have a more commercial or consumer under-pinning,  sometimes with extraordinary results.  To judge from their  results over the years,  and cross-tasting,  technical factors are often ignored,  and at times faults such as VA are consistently marked up.  Likewise,  Australasian results over the last 20 years have demonstrated that consumer-oriented judgings tend to reward wines which are out of balance particularly with respect to oak,  sheer size,  and sometime VA.  

Unlike Britain,  New Zealand is a wine producing country,  and we must very clearly remember that wine judgings have their roots in the Agricultural & Pastoral Shows,  and the traditional first goal of such Shows is to "improve the breed",  not sell more of it.  

There is a grave danger that the commercially-oriented wine shows such as the Liquorland Top 100,  the New Zealand International Wine Show,  and the New World one,  will in fact devalue our two premier judgings (the Air New Zealand Wine Awards and the Royal Easter Show Wine Awards),  if only-slightly-interested consumers become disenchanted with sometimes misleading results.  Australian experience over the last 45 years with their plethora of national,  state,  regional and local wine shows has shown that the wine public can very easily become weary of never-ending strings of medals on virtually every wine.  The whole wine show concept becomes devalued.  To end up in this position here would be a great loss to New Zealand wine practice.

As I see it therefore,  there is an urgent need to improve the standard of judging even more in our two pre-eminent shows,  so that even the most doubting-Thomas will concede that yes,  a medal from the Air New Zealand or the Easter Show does mean something.  Tightening up on the present lax approach to reductive wines would be a good starting place.  As discussed earlier in this report,  our continuing tolerance of variously green / under-ripe wines is another,  though a little more care is needed here,  since there is an overlap with the critical temperate-climate positive attribute of florality.

Methodology
Procedure was much the same as that documented for the similar Waiheke Island Expo,  recently reported on in this website,  except that this time the extra step of evaluating all 134 wines (two replicates) blind in one batch was adopted.  This approach highlights perception of exactly how varietal each wine in fact is,  before re-examining and ranking them in the varietal classes,  though still blind.

Review format follows the Waiheke model too.  Inclusion of the winemaker's thoughts on the winestyle as expressed in the Catalogue,  and where applicable the Awards it has won as listed in the Catalogue (either or both sometimes summarised),  into my italicised 'admin' section,  combine with my assessment and these prefatory remarks to give a more balanced picture.  All available website info has been summarised.  The good winery websites,  led by Craggy Range and Pernod-Ricard (the latter not always totally up-to-date for the latest release of every label) set a splendid example in providing worthwhile wine detail.  Some websites are sadly wanting in specific wine information,  and some are mere marketing blah.  For more important or intriguing wines,  I have contacted the winemaker for further detail,  but I have not contacted every winery in the Expo – the whole project starts to take too many weeks.  

Related to methodology,  I would like to make a plea to wineries concerning the communication of cropping rate.  Is it perversity that drives some winemakers and viticulturists to express their cropping rates in terms of kilos per vine only ?  Since they virtually never give the planting density per unit area,  that statistic is much less meaningful than it could be.  Certainly producers proud of cropping at 3 kg / vine are going to make much lighter wine than those cropping at 1 kg / vine – both figures are in this batch of wines.  But France has for more than 100 years now expressed cropping rate either as tonnes per hectare or hectolitres per hectare,  with the unstated assumption that around 1 kg / vine works well for wine quality.  It is the basis of the AOC system,  and pivotal to a semi-quantitative expression of wine quality – an index.  [ As an aside,  2007 Craggy Range Sophia,  described as of undoubted classed growth Bordeaux quality in this report,  is cropped at a grand cru rate of about one kilo per vine.  Producers of lesser and leaner (but sometimes more expensive) wines wonder why reds such as Sophia are recognised both in New Zealand and overseas as being totally international in quality.  There is the answer,  supplemented by viticulture and water-management regimes designed to optimise tannin ripeness in the grapes.]  So,  in terms of ease of comparison,  and intrinsic meaningfulness and comprehensibility,  it would be helpful if wineries would at least observe the traditional standard measure of cropping rate in communicating with the outside world.  If they cannot abandon their kilos per vine,  please also advise the planting density per hectare,  so keen observers can complete the equation.  I acknowledge I need to give thought likewise to adopting tonnes per hectare in these reports – for the moment tonnes per acre simply has greater immediate meaning for most readers.

Final thought on Hawkes Bay wine quality
One incidental impression of the wines in this tasting is the delight in finding more of them delightfully fragrant and charming in mouth.  One factor is our wonderfully temperate viticultural climate,  as touched on elsewhere.  But from another slant,  it does not seem too far-fetched to correlate this increasing 'beauty' in our wines with our leading winemakers growing in the confidence to move away from industrial prescriptions for red wine-making learnt in wine-school.  There the emphasis has too much been on low pHs way under 3.5 meaning added tartaric acid and harsh palates – like so many Australian reds.  Conversely the traditionally great wines of Europe have always shown more natural pHs at a much higher value,  say 3.65 or higher sometimes.  Many of the more lovely wines in this review likewise have pHs in that area.  It would be a brave person who opines that reds with pHs at this level do not cellar.

Acknowledgements
Several people helped me with detail and perspective in preparing this report.  In alphabetical order,  Chris Scott of Church Road,  Gordon Russell of Esk Valley Estate,  John Hancock of Trinity Hill,  Jon Peet of Ash Ridge,  Michael Brajkovich MW of Kumeu River,  Paul Mooney of Mission Estate,  Peter Cowley of Te Mata,  Rod Easthope of Craggy Range,  Rod McDonald of Matariki Wines (and Chairman Hawkes Bay WineGrowers),  Rosie Butler of Lime Rock and Warren Gibson of Trinity Hill contributed greatly to the understanding needed.  I appreciate their help enormously.  That does not mean they agree with my views,  however.  Many thanks also to those winemakers who added much interest to the proceedings by bringing preview bottles of future releases.  This is exciting for winewriters,  and when written up allows everybody the pleasure of anticipating further good things in the pipeline.

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LAYOUT – AND THE WINES REVIEWED:

White Sparkling Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and related blends Riesling Pinot Gris Gewurztraminer Viognier Sweet / Sticky All other white wines, blends, etc. Red Rosé Cabernet, Merlot, and related blends 2006  Abbey Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Cardinal 2005  Abbey Cellars Cabernets / Merlot 2006  Abbey Cellars [ Merlot / Cabernet ] Graduate 2007  Alpha Domus [ Cabernets / Merlot / Malbec ] Aviator [ preview ] 2004  Alpha Domus [ Merlot / Cabernet ] The Navigator 2004  Alpha Domus Merlot / Cabernet The Pilot 2005  Alpha Domus Merlot The Pilot 2007  Ash Ridge Cabernet / Merlot Reserve 2006  Ash Ridge Wines Cabernet / Merlot 2004  Babich Cabernet / Merlot Irongate 2006  Babich [ Cabernet Sauvignon / Malbec / Merlot ] The Patriarch 2005  Babich [ Merlot / Cabernet ] Patriarch 2007  Babich Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon Lone Tree 2007  Babich Merlot Winemakers Reserve 2006  Bridge Pa Vineyard Merlot Zillah 2007  Church Road Cabernet / Merlot Reserve 2005  Church Road Cabernet Sauvignon Cuve 2007  Church Road Malbec Cuve Limited Release 2007  Church Road Merlot / Cabernet 2006  Church Road Merlot / Cabernet Reserve 2005  Church Road Merlot / Cabernet Tom [ preview ] 2007  Clearview Estate Cabernet Franc Winery Reserve 2007  Clearview Estate Winery  [CS / CF / Me ]  Old Olive Block 2007  Clearview Estate Winery [ Malbec / Cabernet  ] Two Pinnacles 2006  Clearview Estate Winery [ Me / CF / CS ] Enigma 2007  Clearview Estate Winery [ Merlot / Malbec ] Cape Kidnappers 2006  Corbans Cabernet / Merlot Cottage Block 2007  Corbans Merlot / Cabernet Private Bin 2005  Corbans Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon Private Bin 2006  Craggy Range Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon/ Cabernet Franc Te Kahu 2007  Craggy Range Merlot Gimblett Gravels 2007  Craggy Range Merlot Sophia 2007  Crossroads Winery Merlot Hawkes Bay 2006  Esk Valley Malbec / Merlot / Cabernet Franc The Terraces 2007  Esk Valley Merlot Black Label 2007  Esk Valley Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon / Malbec Black Label 2006  Esk Valley Merlot / Malbec / Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2006  Lime Rock Merlot 2007  Matariki Cabernet / Merlot 2005  Matariki [ Hawkes Bay blend ] Quintology 2007  Mission Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot / Cabernet Franc Jewelstone 2007  Mission Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2007  Mission Merlot Reserve 2007  Mission Merlot Vineyard Selection 2007  Moana Park Cabernet Sauvignon Gimblett Gravels Vineyard Tribute 2007  Moana Park Merlot Gimblett Gravels Vineyard Tribute 2007  Moana Park Merlot / Malbec Gimblett Gravels Vineyard Selection 2006  Ngatarawa Merlot / Cabernet Alwyn 2007  Ngatarawa Merlot / Cabernet Glazebrook 2008  Ngatarawa Merlot Silks 2007  Paritua Red The Paritua Collection 2005  Pask Cabernet / Merlot / Malbec Declaration 2007  Pask Cabernet / Merlot / Malbec Gimblett Road 2005  Pask Malbec Declaration 2005  Pask Merlot Declaration 2007  Pask Merlot Gimblett Road 2007  Salvare Merlot 2007  Sileni Merlot Cellar Selection 2007  Sileni Merlot EV (Exceptional Vintage) 2007  Sileni Merlot The Triangle Estate Selection series 2005  Squawking Magpie Merlot / Cabernet Gimblett Gravels SQM 2005  Squawking Magpie Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon Gimblett Gravels The Nest 2006  Squawking Magpie Merlot Gimblett Gravels The Nest

2007  Squawking Magpie Merlot / Syrah / Malbec The Chatterer 2007  [ Paritua Vineyards Merlot / Cabernet ] Stone Paddock Scarlet 2006  Trinity Hill [ Merlot / Cabernet ] Gimblett Gravels The Gimblett 2007  Vidal Merlot / Cabernet Estate 2007  Vidal Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2006  Villa Maria Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot Reserve 2007  Villa Maria Merlot / Cabernet Sauvignon Cellar Selection 2005  Villa Maria Merlot Reserve 2007  [ Craggy Range group ] Wild Rock Merlot / Malbec Gravel Pit Red 2005  Wishart [ Merlot / Malbec ] Legend Cabernet / Shiraz Pinot Noir 2007  Lime Rock Pinot Noir 2006  Lime Rock Pinot Noir 2005  Lime Rock Pinot Noir 2007  Lime Rock Pinot Noir White Knuckle Hill 2007  Matariki Pinot Noir Aspire 2005  Sileni Pinot Noir EV (Exceptional Vintage) 2007  Sileni Pinot Noir The Plateau 2007  Vidal Pinot Noir Reserve Hawkes Bay Stopbank Syrah = Shiraz 2007  Alpha Domus Syrah 2007  Ash Ridge Wines Syrah Cardoness Vineyard 2007  Babich Syrah Gimblett Gravels 2007  Babich Syrah Winemakers Reserve 2005  Bridge Pa Syrah Hawkes Bay 2006  Bridge Pa Vineyard Syrah Louis 2007  Bridge Pa Vineyard Syrah Reserve 2007  Church Road Syrah Reserve 2007  Corbans Syrah Private Bin 2007  [ Corbans ] Cottage Block Syrah 2006  [ Corbans ] Cottage Block Syrah 2007  Craggy Range Syrah Gimblett Gravels Block 14 2007  Crossroads Winery Syrah Hawkes Bay 2006  Crossroads Winery Syrah Hawkes Bay 2007  Crossroads Winery Syrah Hawkes Bay Reserve Elms Vineyard 2006  Esk Valley Estate Syrah Black Label 2007  Esk Valley Syrah Reserve [ preview ] 2006  Matariki Syrah 2007  Matariki Syrah Aspire 2007  Mission Syrah [‘Special’ Future Release – preview ] 2007  Mission Syrah Jewelstone 2008  Mission Syrah Reserve 2007  Mission Syrah Reserve 2007  Moana Park Syrah Vineyard Selection 2007  Moana Park Syrah / Viognier Vineyard Tribute 2007  Ngatarawa Syrah Glazebrook 2007  Paritua Vineyards Syrah The Paritua Collection 2007  Pask Syrah Declaration 2006  Pask Syrah Gimblett Road 2007  Salvare Syrah 2006  Salvare Syrah 2007  Sileni Syrah Cellar Selection 2007  Sileni Syrah The Peak 2007  Squawking Magpie Syrah Gimblett Gravels The Stoned Crow 2007  Squawking Magpie Syrah The Chatterer 2007  [ Paritua Vineyards ] Stone Paddock Syrah 2007  Trinity Hill Syrah Gimblett Gravels 2007  Trinity Hill Syrah Hawkes Bay 2007  Vidal Syrah Estate 2007  Vidal Syrah Reserve 2007  Villa Maria Syrah Cellar Selection 2007  Villa Maria Syrah Reserve 2007  [ Craggy Range group ] Wild Rock Syrah Angels Dust 2005  Wishart Syrah Alluvion 2006  Wishart Syrah Te Puriri Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre & related blends All other red wines, blends etc 2006  Babich Pinotage Winemakers Reserve 2007  Church Road Marzemino Cuve Series Limited Release 2007  Crossroads Winery [ not-revealed blend ] Talisman 2006  Matariki Sangiovese 2008  Trinity Hill Montepulciano Hawkes Bay 2007  Trinity Hill Tempranillo Gimblett Gravels From the Cellar. Older wines.

 

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