RESPONSIBLE each year for the production of well over a million cases of New Zealand, Italian and French wines, Matt Thomson has been deeply involved with Marlborough's largest family-owned winery since its inception in 1994. Today, he is best known as the chief winemaker for Saint Clair Estate - with his name on the labels - but this tireless winemaker also has his fingers in several other pies.
Matt's interest in wine goes back to his spell at Dunstan High School, at Alexandra, in Central Otago. On an overnight trip to Dunedin, he introduced six classmates to the delights of sharing a single bottle of wine with dinner. The staff were not impressed. "We were all suspended. I got an extra day because I'd bought the wine. I'd never even had a detention before. I thought I was doing something good and responsible. Fortunately my parents stood up for me."
By the time Matt was 19, his sights were trained on becoming a winemaker. While studying for an MSc in biochemistry at the University of Otago, he joined wine tasting clubs. "Virtually all my disposable income went on wine. That experience, along with scientific training, was more use than a degree in winemaking."
Tasting is still a key focus for Matt - and not only wine. Before vintage, he spends a great deal of time in the vineyards, monitoring the changing flavour profile of the grapes. Neal Ibbotson, who owns Saint Clair with his wife, Judy, says, "Matt has a great palate and tremendous skill for optimising these grape flavours at harvest."
"I like to take a step away from the analyses and do a harvest based on taste," says Matt. "You need to understand the vineyards; spend time down there." Other key ingredients in his recipe for success include learning from others (such as Kim Crawford, Simon Waghorn, Glenn Thomas and Jules Taylor), and keeping an open mind. "Then there's Neal Ibbotson's motto: 'How do we do it better?'."
After vintage, Matt and his winemaking team taste and rate every batch of wine on a 10-point scale. Sauvignon blanc grapes with a rating of five earn markedly less than those with a maximum rating of 10. The result: Saint Clair has highly motivated grapegrowers.
Of the company's total sauvignon blanc intake, only one per cent is reserved for its illustrious Saint Clair Wairau Reserve Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc label. Another two per cent is allocated to the Saint Clair Pioneer Block range; 30 per cent to the consistently impressive Saint Clair Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc; and 25 per cent to the highly affordable Saint Clair Vicar's Choice label. The remaining 42 per cent is not sold under the Saint Clair brand.
In 2006, Saint Clair opened a multimillion-dollar winery in Marlborough, capable of crushing 300 tonnes of grapes a day. "We have a very big throat - we can take fruit fast," says Matt. The winery was designed around the batch size from harvesters, "because that's something you can't really change".
Rather than buy giant tanks, Matt opted for smaller models. "We didn't want fermenters over 60,000 litres because I think you get too much temperature variation." The smallest tank is 2500 litres, the largest 60,000. "With those smaller tanks, you don't get the stratification, with cooler temperatures at the bottom and hot at the top. The smaller ones allow it to be more homogeneous."
Apart from his top production job at Saint Clair, Matt is co-owner of the Delta Wine Company, which produces silky, graceful pinot noirs and a vibrant, tropical fruit-flavoured sauvignon blanc under the Delta Vineyard label. He is also a partner in Kiwi-Oeno, a Marlborough-based winemaking consultancy firm. Involved with the production of Lake Chalice and Cape Campbell wines, in the past eight years Matt has also been immersed in five projects to design and build wineries.
And there's more. He has worked as a 'flying winemaker' in Italy and France since 1994. Each year, he visits from late August to late October for the harvest; returns in January for blending and bottling; and goes back for a third time in May, for promotional work and to plan the next vintage. From his base in Marlborough, the indefatigable Matt works in Piemonte, Veneto, Friuli, Bordeaux and Languedoc-Roussillon.
After all that, you'd think he'd put his feet up. Not exactly. A runner and cyclist, Matt is also a leading kayaker. He won the New Zealand K2 marathon kayaking championships in 2004 and 2005, and last year placed second, behind Ben Fouhy, in the 36km Open Men's K1 event at the New Zealand titles.
I doubt he took the defeat too badly. Ben is an Olympic silver medallist and Matt has a glittering array of medals, trophies and prizes of his own that now includes
Winestate's New Zealand Winemaker of the Year award.