All
Change: New Zealand Reds&nbsp;

BY REBECCA GIBB MW |&nbsp;APRIL 27, 2023After shutting its doors in March 2020, New
Zealand fully opened borders to international visitors in August 2022. Despite
a global pandemic raging around them, the country’s winemakers have enjoyed a
string of good vintages: 2019, 2020 and 2021. There have been many changes
since the government closed its doors. It had been three years since I stepped
foot in Aotearoa, a country I called home for six years and which will forever
be a part of me. Admittedly, there are a lot of familiar faces sporting a few
more grey hairs and wrinkles, myself included. The stalwarts of the industry
and the names we have come to consider New Zealand’s finest remain. They
continue to refine and redefine their wines, whether it’s Ata Rangi, Felton
Road or Kumeu River. However, it is inescapable that this industry is
transitioning from its first generation of wine producers to the next.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1682605457355-red+1+Dawn+breaks+over+Lake+Wanaka+and+Rippon%27s+vineyards%2C+one+of+Central+Otago%27s+pioneers_copy.jpg">Dawn breaks over Lake Wanaka and Rippon's vineyards, one of Central Otago's pioneers. 

International influences have been a part of
the New Zealand wine scene from its early days. Dalmatians were the driving
force behind the wine scene in the late 19th century. The modern era
of New Zealand wine has been shaped by a united nation of small wine producers who
have emigrated from their homeland, whether Austria, Australia, America or Asia,
to grow grapes at the bottom of the earth. Its isolation has always attracted
the super-rich, with billionaires buying a piece of New Zealand with the
expectation that they can get on a private jet to escape when Armageddon hits. What
started as a gentle trickle to own a New Zealand vineyard has become a steady
stream in recent years with prestigious, large-scale overseas investment:
Australia’s Torbreck has purchased Martinborough’s Escarpment Vineyard; San
Diego businessman Brian Sheth has taken on Pyramid Valley in North Canterbury
as well as Lowburn Ferry in Central Otago; Edmond de Rothschild bought Akarua
in Central Otago; LVMH expanded their operation from Cloudy Bay in Marlborough
to Central Otago; even James Suckling has purchased a property in Martinborough
which long supplied the single vineyard fruit for Kiwa to Escarpment. The list
goes on.

Things are changing within New Zealand’s borders,
too. The long-standing wine team at Dry River, including winemaker Wilco Lam
with the backing of a German investor, failed to take ownership of the place he
called work and home. It was sold to Luna (the neighboring estate), owned by
the Chinese-born, Wellington-based businessman Charlie Zheng. The Dry River
team has since acquired the nearby vineyard On Giants’ Shoulders and will rebrand
and build on the blocks a young couple put in place. There have also been
high-profile personnel changes, including ex-Vidal winemaker Hugh Crichton who
is now heading up the cellar at Elephant Hill. At the same time, Richelle Tyney
left Spy Valley to join Kevin Judd at Greywacke.

There’s also natural generational change. The
early 1980s marked a new, modern period for the New Zealand wine scene. Many of
those who spent 40 years and more making it what it is now, including Villa
Maria’s George Fistonich, Escarpment’s Larry McKenna, Trinity Hill’s John
Hancock, Dog Point (formerly Cloudy Bay’s) James Healy, Neudorf’s Tim and Judy
Finn to name but a few, are hanging up their winemaking boots or handing over
the reins to the next generation. The children of the Baby Boomer generation
are taking over from their parents, learning the reins as much as they teach
their parents new tricks. But they are in the minority: just 25% of businesses
make it to the second generation, according to the Family Business
Institute. The question of succession will only continue to grow as the New
Zealand community expands: there were just 131 wine companies in 1990. Today,
there are 744 wineries.

There is a group of new brands made by younger
producers whose parents have had no association with wine other than drinking
brands like Chasseur from a boxed, three-liter bag in the 1980s and early
1990s. Among them are many experimental winemakers pushing the boundaries of
New Zealand wine. The youth’s courage has imbued many with a desire to explore the
question: will the country’s past and present wine scene be its future? As a
result, there is a cohort of brilliant and motivated alternative winemakers
across the country turning away from the pristine, conventional winemaking of
their predecessors, trialing extended skin contact, pied de cuve
ferments, blending varieties that you wouldn’t traditionally consider as
partners and holding back on most cellar interventions. The results are wildly
variable, from good to undrinkable. Wine aims to provide sensory pleasure, and
when presented with a cloudy, tannic white or a sour red, it fails in its
primary objective. I can’t help but feel it’s all a case of Emperor’s New
Clothes, and many of us are frightened to say so. In stating this, I may be
accused of being closed-minded, but I am not. I am seeking out these wines at
every opportunity in a bid to have my mind changed. However, this is an
industry in flux. The growing diversity&nbsp;of both the community and its
wines is a natural exploratory step if it is to mature and thrive. &nbsp;<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1682605495179-Red+3.+North+Canterbury+is+New+Zealand+wine%27s+best+kept+secret+but+its+hillside+vineyards+won%27t+stay+secret+for+long_copy.jpg">North Canterbury is New Zealand wines' best-kept secret, but its hillside vineyards won't stay secret for long. 

The Latest Releases

The latest release for most New Zealand’s red winemakers
is either 2020 or 2021. The pair is part of a trio of vintages that have broad
similarities in that they were predominantly warm, dry seasons that allowed
producers to harvest when they wished rather than be forced to make decisions
due to the onset of inclement weather or botrytis pressure.

When it comes to New Zealand’s most planted
red variety, Pinot Noir, extraction is the keyword, particularly when
considering 2021 and 2019. In both vintages, low yields were followed by a dry,
warm summer leading to small berries. Handling tannin was critical, and not
everyone managed to pull it off. The 2020s offer greater harmony, which is
surprising considering that a lockdown was imposed in the middle of harvest,
and the producers had a certain amount of panic. The 2021s will take much
longer to come around, and after tasting a few early drops of the 2022 vintage,
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we are drinking the 2022s, followed by the 2020s,
while the 2021s slowly come around.

Marlborough

The 2021 Pinot Noirs from Marlborough are all deep
in color and richly tannic. They are the result of a warm, dry, low-yielding
season. Potential crops were cut by around a third due to early and protracted
flowering, affected by cool weather and rain. It was another warm, dry summer
with drought pressure, but the vines may have been more stressed had the crop
levels been higher. Due to the small bunches and small berries, plus varied
berry sizes within bunches, picking decisions were difficult, and extraction choices
were equally crucial to avoid overly tannic, hard Pinot Noirs. Most successful
wines held back on the frequency and timing of pump over and plunges. After the
big, purple, tannic beasts of 2019, producers learned that less is more.

Martinborough

Across the Cook Strait in Martinborough, cool,
wet weather during flowering caused yet another small Pinot Noir crop. Many
producers report that their red harvest was around 50%. This small region was
ruing what could have been if they had more fruit on the vine when the summer
turned warm and dry, ripening the fruit early. Roger Parkinson of Nga Waka
notes that the harvest was the earliest ever: “over our first 20 vintages, not
one harvest would have started by the date we finished picking this year.”
Small berries and small bunches make for concentrated, structured Pinots that
will stand the test of time.

North Canterbury

It was all over before it began for some North
Canterbury vineyards. The mild winter led to an early budburst, and along came
frosts in late September and early October. “It’s burned into my memory,” says Mike
Saunders, the viticulturist for Greystone in Waipara. “Our frost system [water]
failed totally. It worked perfectly, but it was -4˚C out there.” As a result,
yields were tiny, with some blocks totally wiped out. Fans of Pyramid Valley’s
single vineyard Pinot Noirs – Earth Smoke and Angel Flower – will be
disappointed as there is no bottling in 2021. For the fruit that survived the spring onslaught, the
small yields and warm, dry conditions in summer meant that an early harvest was
inevitable.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1682605517622-Red+4+to+go+by+beyond+pInot+noir+section.+The+vineyards+of+Hawke%27s+Bay%27s+Gimblett+Gravels+have+become+renowned+for+their+Bordeaux+blends+and+Syrah_copy.jpg">The vineyards of Hawke's Bay's Gimblett Gravels have become renowned for their Bordeaux blends and Syrah. 

Central Otago

Central Otago lives in its own semi-continental
bubble, basking in sunshine when the rest of the country is flooded, experiencing
snowfall while their East Coast counterparts sunbathe. In 2021, the region experienced
frosts in late September, where frost-management
systems fought off the cold’s effects on the bursting buds. Still, on 28 December, another
unseasonal frost hit, followed by 135mm of rain. This not only spoiled the new
year’s break for revellers but stressed local growers. Summer took its time to
get going. A cold and unusually wet January further affected crop size and its
development. Only after the summer holidays ended and the country’s children
returned to school did the clouds part with almost no rain for the next two
months, and warm weather arrived. As summer turned to autumn in late March,
temperatures cooled, and early April marked the Pinot Noir harvest, making for
a relatively early vintage, which was welcome after the cold 2020 season. Small
yields and warmth in February and the first half of March helped the crop to
the finish line. You can expect wines with depth and color, although a full
assessment of the 2021s will be clearer as more wines are released over the
course of the year.

Beyond Pinot Noir

Hawke’s Bay typically enjoys a temperate
climate on New Zealand's North Island and is better suited to Bordeaux blends
and spicy Syrah than Pinot Noir. The region has enjoyed a run of three good
vintages: 2019, 2020 and 2021. However, at the time of writing, it is
recovering from the effects of Cyclone Gabrielle, which hit New Zealand on
Valentine’s Day, killing eight people, cutting power, flooding homes and ruining
vineyards.

The first 2021s are starting to emerge,
including the much-anticipated annual Te Mata Coleraine release in March.
However, the majority of red releases remain 2020s, with some 2019s still the
current release for a number of cuvées. The 2020 harvest was the year that
almost wasn’t. A national lockdown was imposed on 25 March, which is usually
the week Hawke’s Bay starts picking its earliest red varieties and continuing
through the first half of April. Fortunately, the government designated wine as
an essential industry, and harvest could continue, albeit under new and
stringent restrictions. It was an early start to proceedings, with the rest of
the season consequently running ahead of schedule amid warm, dry conditions.
There’s richness and roundness in the reds. I particularly like the seductive
nature of the Syrahs and their persistence in 2020. The Cabernet-dominant
blends are similarly plush, although some of the Merlots are leaner than ideal.
Certainly, some producers went out into the vineyards before 25 March in a
panic that they wouldn’t be able to pick fruit if they went into lockdown, and
the wines have suffered for it. Tasting the 2019s alongside the 2020s, the 2019s
have the edge in terms of impressive richness, but they also have an extra year
in bottle.

The 2021s will start to be released in the
coming year. The growing season was again warmer-than-average, resulting in highly
concentrated grapes with small berries. A moderate summer meant that harvest
was a waiting game. Temperatures needed for fully ripening the late varieties had
producers wait for acids to fall while balancing the challenge of sugars rising
and finding the right tipping point for both parameters. It will likely be a
longer-lived vintage as a result.

I tasted about half of the wines in this
report at home in England, with the remainder during a trip to New Zealand in
January 2023. The wines were tasted in various settings in New Zealand, both at
wineries with the winemakers and at regional tastings.© 2023, Vinous. No portion of this article may be copied, shared or re-distributed without prior consent from Vinous. Doing so is not only a violation of our copyright, but also threatens the survival of independent wine criticism.<hr> You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/new-zealand-whites-the-great-divide-apr-2023">New Zealand Whites: The Great Divide</a>, Rebecca Gibb MW, April 2023 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/new-zealand-reds-treading-lightly-apr-2022">New Zealand Reds: Treading Lightly</a>, Rebecca Gibb MW, April 2022 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/desperately-seeking-sauvignon-mar-2022">Desperately Seeking Sauvignon</a>, Rebecca Gibb MW, March 2022

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