Wine: Varietals are the spice of life

Sam Weaver with freshly picked petit manseng grapes.

Unlike many Old World countries that are restricted by laws that dictate the types of grapes they're allowed to grow and the wines they can produce from them, here in New Zealand we aren't tied to such rules, meaning we can have a crack at planting pretty much any variety we like in order to make new and interesting wines.

It wasn't long ago that I was geeking out over the first local versions of arneis, gruner veltliner, albarino, dolcetto, St Laurent and sauvignon gris. I thought marzemino was about as exotic as it got, until this week I took possession of a shiny new marsanne and a perfect little petit manseng.

It was on June 25, 2012 that I tasted my first petit manseng. It was a sweet, tangy tank sample produced from a little half-hectare plot up on Sam Weaver's "shin" vineyard at Churton, in Marlborough's Waihopai Valley. Eleven of Sam's vineyard blocks are named after cuts of meat, in homage I suppose to his cattle, which provide the manure for his biodynamic preparations. It also helps that on paper the vineyard looks remarkably like a side of beef. Exactly 15 months later, the finished wine arrived on my doorstep. Hailing from Jurancon in the southwest of France, it's a grape, Weaver says, that produces wine with a sense of mystery. "Without mystery, wine is an industrial product," he says. "Petit manseng has a mysterious quality that's difficult to put your finger on, yet it produces wine with assertive character, wonderful drive and length of flavour but also accessible fruitiness."

Apparently it's pronounced "petee man-sang", according to Sam's wife Mandy, who's already nicknamed it "the little man who sang".

Sam reckons it'll never be a mass-produced variety because it yields only about 50 per cent juice, compared to a grape like sauvignon blanc, which can yield more than 80 per cent. It's early flowering, vigorous and very late ripening. It's sensitive to powdery mildew but very resistant to botrytis.

"It has wonderful open bunches that are fan-like," says Sam. "I like to think that they are bunches that come from the realm of light, its bunches are spread open like a pair of children's hands imitating the sun. The berries don't touch each other and they have thick skins that are golden in colour."

Sam was inspired to plant it after sharing some wonderful experiences with petit manseng.

"I once drank a bottle of Les Jardins de Babylone on the terrace with [cult French winemaker] Didier Dagueneau before going out to dinner with him. Sadly, that was the last time I saw Didier - he was killed in a microlight crash a few months later."

Marsanne hails from the Rhone region in southern France, where it is a member of the holy trinity of white varieties alongside viognier and roussanne.

Our first Kiwi example comes courtesy of Coopers Creek, which secured the fruit from grapegrowers to the stars, Doug and Delwyn Bell. It's named after Doug's newly restored Allisonsupercharged V12 engine from a Curtiss Kittyhawk. An ex-design engineer, he purchased the engine over 30 years ago, vowing to bring it back to life one day. "I've actually known Allison longer than I've known my wife!" he laughs. "I'm flattered Coopers Creek chose Allison as the name for it. I guess the analogy between getting the engine going and getting Allison in the bottle rings true, insofar as the marsanne has been a long time in getting here and the restoration has been languishing in the background for years, so it's really cool that the engine was ready to be started up for the first time the same week as Coopers Creek released the wine."

Lord knows where Doug found the time to tinker about with an aircraft engine when, in addition to his 1ha of marsanne, he's also flat out tending to chardonnay (including the exciting new 548 clone), malbec, albarino, vermentino, viognier, arneis, fiano and sauvignon gris. They've had marsanne in the ground for about four years, but getting perfect fruit from it hasn't been easy. "Young plants, when they start out, they're a bit like teenagers in that they're fraught with behaviours that aren't stable. They cropped heavily and bunches were huge and tight, so with damp seasons they quickly succumbed to wet weather problems like rot."

The first two vintages coincided with Gisborne's worst ever harvest conditions so they couldn't crop it.

"We'd decided we were going to put rain covers on to protect the marsanne for the third vintage because we wanted to provide Coopers Creek with only the best fruit, but as it turned out we had amazing weather and the covers weren't necessary. Plus the plants were maturing, they weren't so vigourous and the cropping levels were settling down so it worked out nicely."

You can watch the video of Doug starting the Allison up on YouTube.

Churton Marlborough Petit Manseng 2012, $49.95

I adore this delicious, snappy sweet, honeysuckle- and mango-laden wine. It's bursting with ripe mandarin and tangelo flavours sliced through with solid, zingy acidity and leaves a long, satisfying citrus finish. This is the first commercial release of petit manseng in the Southern Hemisphere and it's a stunner. www.churtonwines.co.nz

Coopers Creek 'Allison' Gisborne Marsanne 2013, $24

With lovely lifted mineral notes (think riverstones and crushed oyster shells) and an edge of delicate florals, nashi pear and apple blossom, it's a definite new favourite for me. Dry, crisp, clean in the mouth with nice textural weight and zesty green apple notes on the finish. www.cooperscreek.co.nz

Te Mata Estate Gamay Noir 2013, $22

Chock-full of cherry and racy, ripe raspberry characters, this lighter-styled red wine has "spring sipping" written all over it. Fresh, tangy and stitched together with some spicy undertones - this is a nice drop indeed. www.temata.co.nz