Desperately Seeking Sauvignon

BY REBECCA GIBB MW | MARCH 15, 2022

We live in an on-demand society: watch that television program at a time that suits; stay on the couch and order groceries to arrive within minutes; don’t leave the house to collect your fast food. If only you could get grapes delivered. But farming doesn’t work like that, and New Zealand winemakers have been left hungry for fruit. With demand at an all-time high, the country’s wine producers cannot satisfy the global market. A small harvest has created a shortfall of 9 million cases and, with most consumers failing to realize that their favorite Kiwi Sauvignon is running low, a swath of Marlborough look-alikes from Chile and South Africa are happily plugging the gap. But for those who care where their wine comes from, it pays to seek out the 2021 vintage wines. A few words of advice: make it quick.

A particularly mild winter led to one of the earliest budbursts in Marlborough, which is a rightly worrying occurrence. The winter of 2020 was New Zealand’s warmest on record because of warmer sea surface temperatures, high pressure and warm winds caused by a developing La Niña pattern in the Pacific Ocean. Having endured a drought-affected summer and then a warm winter with below average rainfall, growers entered the 2021 season with very dry soils. The burgeoning buds made an early appearance during the last week of September, which happened to coincide with cold nights and several frosts. It was not the start Marlborough winemakers had been hoping for. Some blocks, including in the rarely frosted Dillon’s Point area, had their season ended before it began. But it wasn’t frost that would be the season’s major crop cutter. 

An early budburst meant an early flowering. Growers hope for sunny, settled weather to ensure the crop flowers and sets successfully. With flowering taking place as much as three weeks earlier than normal, it occurred in more unpredictable conditions. As a result, it was a protracted affair, with spring rain and cool temperatures blighting hopes for an abundant crop. The early varieties, including Pinot Noir, were most affected, with final yields down around 35% nationwide. Even the later-flowering Sauvignon Blanc had a rough time; the national crop fell by 18% despite an extra 500 hectares of vineyard in Marlborough compared to 2020. Spring rains weren’t just an issue for the vines. A state of emergency was declared in Napier in Hawke’s Bay after 242mm of rain fell in one day on November 9, causing power cuts, landslides, and evacuation of residents from their homes. On the plus side, rains in November and December gave the soils a much-needed drink before the dry summer kicked in.

The Brancott vineyard, home to Marlborough’s first Sauvignon Blanc vines in 1975.

Twenty twenty-one saw a warm, blue-sky Kiwi summer, Marlborough’s Wairau Valley living up to its Māori name of “the place with the hole in the cloud” (Kei puta te Wairau). Temperatures from January to March weren’t out of the ordinary, and there were no unusual spikes, but there was another dry spell. Kevin Judd of Greywacke in Marlborough explained: “After an indifferent flowering, and then very dry conditions, the low bunch numbers, and the low bunch weights added up to a small crop.” Statistics suggest that the important harvest month of March recorded 80mm of rain or 195% of the monthly average, but only 1.4mm of that rain fell between March 1 and 27, while most of the fruit was safely in the winery. As a result, ripening was even but early. The characteristics of the growing season combined with the small crop, meant, with no surprise, that many growers reported their earliest harvest ever.

But earlier starts and earlier finishes to the growing season seem to be an irreversible trend. In a 2021 report authored by Rob Agnew, Marlborough’s resident wine and weather scientist, data collected over a 17-year-period in a vineyard in the region’s Rapaura district, showed that budburst had advanced by 4.7 days and flowering by more than five days; veraison was two weeks earlier and a Brix level of 21.5 was achieved a week earlier.

It was perhaps a blessing that the crop wasn’t larger in 2021, as windy conditions accompanied the drought that was declared on March 11 across the whole of the North Island as well as Marlborough, Nelson and North Canterbury in the South Island. Matt Thomson of Blank Canvas said, “If we had had normal yields, there would have been more stress, but because yields were low, the drought didn’t stress the plants as much, and that was a savior of the harvest.” 

Despite the lack of wine, the quality of the 2021 Sauvignon Blancs is impressive across the board. Nature undertook its own crop-thinning, preventing the high-yielding vineyards from achieving their abundant goals. The much lighter crop load led to more balanced and interesting wines, even at entry level price points. The reduced yields resulted in higher concentration, riper fruit and fewer green flavors. While the month of March looked a touch warmer than average on paper, that was due to a warm first week; after that, things cooled down, which has also contributed to the freshness and balance that’s clearly seen in the young wines.