Wine: The new frontier

Patrick Materman, Montana. Photo / Supplied

A pioneering organic estate, the chief winemaker at the country's largest wine company and a new boutique operation fusing French and Kiwi creativity are all components of the rich and diverse blend that makes up New Zealand's wine industry.

These players may be treading quite different paths in their work, but each is playing their own important part in shaping the future of the wines we're drinking.

BIG GUN

"Tasting the 1989 Montana Classic sauvignon blanc, which went on to [win the award for] the world's best, I was convinced that wine was the industry for me," recalls Patrick Materman. A year later he joined the company as a cellar hand - his first job in the wine industry - and now 20 years on he's at the winemaking helm of Montana's current owners and the country's largest wine producer, Pernod Ricard New Zealand, with his recent appointment as its chief winemaker.

In those two decades, Materman describes how he's witnessed the transformation of our wine industry. It's an era in which exports have grown from $100 million to over $1 billion a year, the number of wineries multiplied from around 130 to over 650, and plantings in Marlborough - where Materman calls home - expanded from being a few scattered vineyards to covering the entire region.

"It's exciting to have played a part in this growth; to have been involved in the evolution of wine styles, the technical research, and promoting the wines both domestically and internationally," he says.

However, it hasn't always been easy, as Materman recalls challenges from the wash-out vintage of 1995 to the country's current oversupply of sauvignon blanc.

"It's been tough seeing price erosion as a result of oversupply on what is one of the world's truly special and unique wines."

Materman has also seen plenty of change within Montana itself. It's gone from being a local winery to part of a major multinational group through its purchase by Allied Domecq in 2003, and its subsequent sale, two years later, to French drinks group Pernod Ricard.

"It's interesting being part of a large international company," notes Materman. "[It] provides insight into the global business, strength in distribution and the ability to share knowledge within the group."

However, Materman's heart still lies very much in New Zealand's vineyards, where he's come to spend increasing amounts of time over the course of his career "getting to understand the nuances from different vineyard sites".

It's exploiting these differences, combined with exploring new winegrowing avenues that's been at the heart of some of the most interesting projects driven by Materman. One of these is Montana's current quest to make an icon sauvignon blanc - a pertinent endeavour at a time when the country needs to keep the world wowed by its flagship variety.

"Essentially the Icon Project looks to take Marlborough sauvignon blanc to a whole new level," he explains. "Its specific goals are to increase palate interest with weight and texture, and to develop a sauvignon blanc with greater longevity."

He's also been behind Montana's new Living Land series of organically produced wines.

Materman is keen to show New Zealand is more than a one-trick pony. "Although sauvignon's the mainstay of the industry and [our] real point of difference internationally, there is a need for the industry to explore alternative varieties so as not to be totally dependant on it," he says.

A pet project of Materman's, Montana's Showcase Series does just that in featuring emerging grapes from across the country, such as arneis, viognier and New Zealand's first ever sauvignon gris. While big companies have been accused of homogenising the world of wines, it's reassuring that the man dictating styles in our largest wine group is not afraid to do something different.

ORGANIC GROWTH

James and Annie Millton were certainly regarded as pretty different and even a little weird when they started growing grapes organically in Gisborne about 30 years ago.

At a time when few questioned the use of chemicals in viticulture, their adoption of this philosophy meant they were largely held at arms length by the wine industry of that time.

"Our decision to embrace organic growing came from wanting to produce the best wine," explains James Millton, "and observing that in those days of the excessive use the industry was making [of] such terrible chemicals, it was obvious that at vintage time they did not work, but instead left behind plants which had their life energy weakened."

They made the first wines under their Millton label in 1984, but admit that "fear of ridicule" meant they didn't claim their organic credentials until later that decade.

Wine drinkers also shared the industry's lack of interest in more natural winemaking at that time.

"It wasn't until Chernobyl in Russia, Mad Cow Disease in Britain and Pinatubo in the Philippines [the volcanic eruption that discharged climate-changing sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere] did people more widely start thinking about what was going on around them," says Millton.

"Every global disaster played very well into our export sales."

Increased sales may have been a lucky spin off, but Millton's adoption of organics is founded on their desire to make authentic wines, the estate's slogan being, "Before a wine can be great, it must first be true".

"Organics bring a true sense of place to a wine, without disguise," he says.

"I want the four elements of taste to be reflected in these wines and endeavour not to use materials which would otherwise disguise their origins.

"While we follow our principles, we also want to make the very best wines from the given season," he adds. "They may not shine on a judging table, but they're certain to leave a memory of the true character."

Millton's wines have certainly left a positive impression on the palates of wine lovers throughout the world. Their Clos de Ste Anne is one of New Zealand's greatest chardonnays and they also make stand-out syrah, viognier, chenin blanc and an intriguing multi-varietal aromatic blend, the Trois Enfants.

Last year also saw them release the accessibly priced Crazy By Nature range.

Organic, as all their wines now are, its name alludes to the response they got to their move to eschew chemicals back in those early days.

In another move considered lunatic by some, Millton were also one of the first winegrowers in the Southern Hemisphere to practise biodynamics.

Like organics, biodynamics doesn't permit the use of synthetic chemicals, but also works with the sun, stars, planets and moon and uses special preparations to enhance the life (bio) energy (dynamic) of the living things on the estate, explains Millton.

In recent years the Milltons' "madness" has been caught by and indeed inspired many new winegrowers keen to work with rather than against nature in ther winemaking.

As well as the massive drive to "sustainable winegrowing" being pushed by the New Zealand Winegrowers organisation, there has been a huge surge in the conversion to organics in the country's vineyards, while some of the country's most respected wineries have joined Millton in embracing biodynamics.

"We kept on with organics and we have not gone back," says Millton.

"Instead there's been a tsunami of interest in organics and biodynamics [in New Zealand]."

A little bit crazy maybe, but the Milltons are no longer alone.

KIWI-FRANCO FUSION

Another cutting-edge couple, who channel two different cultures into their wines are Frenchman David Ramonteau and his New Zealand partner, Kate Galloway.

They're the duo behind impressive new boutique label Alluviale and avant-gardiste wine, Dada.

Ramonteau was born into a winemaking family in France's mountainous Jurancon region. After studying in Bordeaux, he joined a French wine research company as a technical consultant, which took him around the winemaking globe and eventually to New Zealand.

It was here he met his future partner, Galloway, when they were both working a vintage in Hawkes Bay. She worked as a chef, but while working in Europe she decided to follow her love of wine back to New Zealand and train as a winemaker.

She went on to work as a consultant, which saw her make wine all over France, then return home to become chief winemaker at Alpha Domus, a position she still holds.

"There are huge differences in certain aspects of winemaking between France and New Zealand, largely due to the age of the industry in the different countries," says Galloway.

"We don't work with the same fruit so the resulting wine styles are very different and it's foolish to try and mimic too closely the wine of the other country."

It was New Zealand's distinctive fruit, among other positive attributes, that appealed to Ramonteau about the country.

"I was impressed by the beauty of the country and the incredible intensity of everything that grows here - fruits, vegetable, flowers," he says.

"The winemaking collective is very eclectic, welcoming, warm and interesting - in this aspect it differs very much from the competitive, secretive nature of the industry in France."

Ramonteau, who also consults for Hatton estate, did a stint as consultant winemaker with Blake Family Vineyards, who started the Alluviale label.

When the Blake family decided to sell the label in 2007 he and Galloway jumped at the chance to take it over; making their first wines together under the Alluviale name the following vintage.

The label now makes three wines, an elegant red Bordeaux blend from the Gimblett Gravels; one of the country's rare sauvignon semillon blends and perhaps one of the country's best sauvignon stickies, Anobli.

A successful marriage of the French and New Zealand is evident in all Alluviale wines, via their vibrant New Zealand fruit tempered by the textural complexity found in France's best.

Ramonteau and Galloway were also behind one of the most radical wine releases in recent years with the launch Dada1 under a cloak of intrigue. No mention was made of either the makers or the grape varieties of this strikingly packaged blend of white varieties.

While the wine has done well in Australia and Britain, Galloway and Ramonteau admit that it has struggled somewhat in New Zealand.

"As New Zealand has a young wine culture and no other reference system such as AOC [France's geographical indication system], we rely heavily on varietal labelling here," says Ramonteau.

"Blending white wine was not considered the way to make a premium wine and not announcing the varieties was too radical for most people."

Thankfully, like the Milltons with their organics, Alluviale will be persevering with Dada, with Dada2 - this time a blended red - due for release in early 2011.

It's the people prepared to take chances and push the boundaries like Ramonteau and Galloway, the Milltons and Materman, in wineries both small and large, that are creating the real interest in the wine industry today and whose courage and commitment will likely be the key to its success in the future.