Yvonne Lorkin: They don't come keener than Dan

Daniel Brennan is grateful for the advice he's received and eager to pass it on to others in The New Guard.

Daniel Brennan is a New York-born, Philadelphia-raised winemaker otherwise known as Decibel Dan. He is assistant winemaker at Paritua Vineyards in Hawke's Bay's Bridge Pa triangle and has been making his own wines under the Decibel brand since 2010.

Ditching a life on the road managing a rock band from the Bronx for a career in wine might have had his friends scratching their heads, but after a couple of years of producing and successfully selling his own wines there's no looking back for this 38-year-old soon to become a father.

"My girlfriend is due right on harvest - apparently that's a very common thing," he says when I meet him for a glass of wine in the cool confines of Vidal Estate restaurant. "The guys in the vineyard were like, 'Bloody winemakers, you always do that. You get bored in winter which inevitably means vintage babies."

You can be forgiven for not having come across Decibel wines because, apart from being available in only a couple of small Hawke's Bay establishments, most are sent to the United States.

However, he's built a fully e-commerce website so you can buy the wines online.

How? "I used to do lots of stuff with the band's website," he says, "so I just kind of taught myself.

"The trick is not to be scared. You just go into these forums and find the code and plug it in and if it works, great - if not just take it out."

He makes it sound so easy as he talks about plug-ins and widgets and my eyes glaze over.

So I ask him to rewind. Why wine and why New Zealand? "Touring with a band was awesome, but it was a tough way of life," he says.

"My family has owned a restaurant and wine bar in Philly since prohibition and I'd worked there since I was a kid, so when I quit the music industry I went back to the restaurant and started doing sommelier courses. I'd grown up around wine, my grandfather and greatgrandfather made wines but I never knew I had any sort of palate until I'd done a little training, and soon everything just clicked."

But Dan says that cash in his pocket and a nocturnal lifestyle made him a bad boy in the big city, so some choices needed to be made. "I wanted to go somewhere isolated and really focus on something," he says. "I wanted to take a bold step. I just hadn't anticipated it would be in a place no one had heard of on the other side of the world."

In 2008, Dan landed in New Zealand and began studying wine science at EIT in Hawke's Bay, while working at Te Awa, Vidal Estate, Unison Vineyards and Paritua. He now makes malbec, viognier, sauvignon blanc, a blend of chardonnay and viognier called Amplified from Hawke's Bay and a pinot noir from Martinborough. "Before I moved here I held regular wine tastings in the restaurant and I would drive all the way to New Jersey to get Palliser, Ata Rangi and Dry River wines ... they just made such a huge impression on me. They were clean and pure, but earthy and had rusticity, too."

Despite having never tasted a Hawke's Bay wine until he arrived there, he soon fell in love with the region's sauvignon blanc, knowing it would be a hit in the US.

"It's more food-friendly and has more character than, say, Marlborough, plus it really benefits from being kept for a few years. I'd also love to make Hawke's Bay syrah some day."

Seven years into his wine life in New Zealand things are going well. "Working at Paritua under winemaker Jason Stent is fantastic. He's such a good dude to work with and just totally gets what I'm doing with my own wines as well. Jason really pulls me along and is teaching me so much about creating fine wine at that next level in terms of technique."

Does he have any words of advice for those contemplating a career in wine? "I was lucky in that I already had a small market for my wines back in the US and I feel fortunate that I've led other lives before this," he says. "There are so many different skills needed in this industry - just be prepared for a pay cut and prepare to go a little crazy.

And his favourite part of the winemaking process? "Definitely vintage. The energy of the harvest, the chaos of it all, the long hours and the seat-of-your-pants type environment. If you don't like harvest, go home, winemaking is not for you."

Dan and other younger people in the Hawke's Bay's wine scene have a group of their own, a cluster in which to bond now that The New Guard has been formed.

"The New Guard spawned from regular conversations that I had with Hayden Penny (formerly of Murdoch James), Julianne (Jules) Brogden (of Collaboration Wines) and Bryce Edmonds (assistant winemaker at Beach House Wines) and also hanging out with folks like Alex Hendry, James Ostergren and Guillaume Thomas," says Dan, a founding member.

The common thread among the members is that they all work for other, larger producers and have aspirations to make their own wines or do their own thing some day. "It's developed organically, just some friends hanging out, having dinners, tasting wines and sort of geeking out about techniques and styles, and now we have 15 members."

I tagged along to one of their meetings held inside an implement shed at the back of the vineyard house on Maraekakaho Rd. I bought along some wine, they supplied the cheese and crackers, the conversation flowed, and the laughs got louder and it really felt like I was being pleasantly sucked into a new wave of winemaking talent. "It is a very international group," Daniel says. "There are Kiwis, a couple of Americans, some French guys, a couple of English, Japanese, Canadian and a Spaniard." "We're all at different stages of our careers, " Dan says. "For instance, Jules and I both have our own established brands. We've developed markets and have sort of been though the ropes with that stuff, while guys like Bryce and Alex are just getting started with their brands, so we try to help each other out. It's exciting what the future holds."

SIPS OF THE WEEK

Decibel Crownthorpe Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2013, $18

A good example of Hawke's Bay showing its true, tangy, tropical colours here, with mango, lemon curd and nectarine notes on the nose followed by a lovely creamy, layered mid-palate bursting with ripe citrus and leaving a zesty, mineral finish.
Decibel Martinborough Pinot Noir 2013, $35

Ultra-ripe with intense red fruit intensity on the nose. It's lush and lovely in the mouth and I love the earthy, forest-floor characters, buoyant spiciness and its balance and poise on the palate. It has personality in spades and is destined for great things.

Decibel Hawke's Bay Viognier 2014, $22

Sourced from Dartmoor Valley fruit, this has classic viognier hallmarks: apricot, jasmine, honey and citrus oil notes. A nice vein of acidity keeps the finish fresh and lively. A good example, that is super-tasty with good old sweet and sour pork.
All wines are from decibelwines.com