VERY LITTLE wine flowed in the South Island until after Montana planted its first, sweeping vineyards in Marlborough in 1973. Tom McDonald, once known as ‘the baron of the Hawke's Bay wine industry', famously declared in the 1960s that commercial wine production would be impossible south of Cook Strait. Yet, as early as the 19th century, vineyards were grown and a trickle of wine was made in several South Island regions, including Bannockburn, in Central Otago, and Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula in Canterbury. Today, New Zealand's two southernmost wine regions boast over 150 wineries.
Central Otago's seductively scented and silky pinot noirs have taken the world by storm since the first commercial wines flowed in 1987, and fans can look forward to a lot more wine from the 2008 vintage. The region's growers harvested 9495 tonnes of grapes - more than twice the previous record. Further north, it was the same story in Canterbury, where the harvest of 6881 tonnes was more than double the previous record.
Despite their bumper crops, the regions produced less than six per cent of the country's total output of wine in 2008. Many wineries are tiny, although some are fast-growing. Central Otago and Waipara - Canterbury's most prominent wine district - are winning international acclaim, not only for classy pinot noir but also for their vibrantly fruity, cool-climate white wines, especially riesling and pinot gris.
Festooned with vines, the narrow valley at Gibbston - as famous for its bungy-jumping as wine - is the closest wine area to Queenstown. The site of Gibbston Valley's and Chard Farm's pioneering plantings, and now the sleek, architectural award-winning Peregrine winery, this elevated, late-ripening sub-region yields perfumed, herb and spice-flavoured pinot noirs, less powerful than those from the Cromwell Basin, where most of Central Otago's vines are now clustered.
On the north-facing Bannockburn slopes, above Cromwell, are based such big names of the Central Otago wine industry as Felton Road, Mt Difficulty and Olssens. The pinot noirs here are typically scented and generous, warm, spicy and supple. No other region in New Zealand can match Central Otago for the drink-young appeal of its powerful, yet charming, reds.
Between the township of Omarama, in North Otago, and the distant coast at Oamaru, lies the Waitaki Valley, one of New Zealand's fledgling wine regions. Cynics see the hype surrounding some of the area's initial releases - up to $80 a bottle - as having more to do with land speculation than intrinsic wine quality, but the rare, early pinot noirs are promising.
Humorist A.K.Grant wrote a decade ago that "Canterbury is coming to be symbolised not just by its [rugby] colours, which are red and black, but by its wines, which are red and white." Robin and Norman Mundy planted Canterbury's first commercial vineyard, St Helena, near Belfast, north of Christchurch, in 1978. Five years later, St Helena Pinot Noir 1982 electrified the region's fledgling wine community by scooping a gold at the National Wine Competition - only the second gold medal ever given to a pinot noir in New Zealand. The Giesen brothers, raised in the Rheinpfalz winegrowing region of Germany, soon after built a winery at Burnham, south-west of the city, which swiftly became Canterbury's largest.
For many years, St Helena and Giesen dominated the Canterbury wine scene, but today both producers, although retaining their headquarters in the region, have shifted their focus to Marlborough sauvignon blanc. "We intended to sell almost all our wine on the export market," says Theo Giesen, "and our customers only wanted sauvignon blanc. Being virtually a one-wine producer makes life a whole lot simpler."
Canterbury's 56 vineyards lie as far south as the isolated Hakataramea Valley, north of the Waitaki River. Inland from Timaru, Opihi Vineyard produces a consistently good trickle of pinot gris. From vines up to 31 years old on Banks Peninsula, Kaituna Valley coaxes an exceptionally dark and concentrated, multiple award-winning pinot noir.
Today, however, over 75 per cent of the region's vines are clustered at Waipara, in North Canterbury, where the vineyards are protected from cooling coastal breezes by the Teviotdale Hills to the east. The area's winemakers like to sum up the difference in temperatures between Waipara and the Canterbury Plains on any particular day as: "There's a jersey in it."
Confidence in the region soared in 1994 when a handsome, American-funded restaurant and winery, then known as Canterbury House (now The Mud House) rose dramatically alongside the highway. Over the past decade, Pernod Ricard NZ has established its sweeping Omihi and Camshorn vineyards, and the McKean family have planted the giant, 325ha Wai-ata vineyard, contracted to major, North Island-based wine producers.
Pegasus Bay, established by the Donaldson family in 1986, is the most accomplished producer in Waipara - a status reinforced by the regional tasting in this issue.