WineNZ Summer 18-19 (1)

news & views
Wine Briefs
Second win for Annabel
Annabel Bulk from Felton Road is
the Young Horticulturist of the Year
2018. Annabel won the Bayer Young
Viticulturist of the Year competition at
the end of August, then went on to win
the overall competition in November. She
competed against five other finalists from
other horticultural sectors - Landscaping
NZ, Horticulture NZ, NZ Plant Producers,
NZ Flower Growers and NZ Amenity
Horticulture.
Record set for auction
The annual Hawke’s Bay Wine Auction,
held at the Napier Conference Centre
recently set another record, with $265,500
raised for the Bay’s Cranford Hospice.
Over 650 wine enthusiasts from across
the country came together to bid for
wine lots from many of Hawke’s Bay’s
wineries, art work and a travel package.
Warning labels mandatory
Pregnancy warning labels on alcohol
will become mandatory in New Zealand,
Minister for Food Safety Damien
O’Connor announced recently. The
decision was made at the Australia New
Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food
Regulation in Adelaide. “While the
alcohol industry has been voluntarily
including warnings on some products for
the past six years there is no consistency in
the type, colour, size and design, reducing
the effectiveness of the message,” Damien
O’Connor said.
Fresh team at Coal Pit
Arnika Willner has been appointed
as Winemaker at Coal Pit Wines in
Gibbston, with Olly Masters appointed as
Winemaking Consultant. Arnika, a Lincoln
and Ohio State University graduate, was
part of the Coal Pit winemaking team
for the 2018 vintage and has experience
from Oregon, Australia, Germany, South
Africa as well as New Zealand.
Canterbury united
Its been a long-time in the making,
but Wines of Canterbury and Waipara
Valley Wine Growers have finally merged
to form North Cantrbury Wine Region.
The new organisation, representing
the interests of all Canterbury’s wine
producers, had its first get-together in
Christchurch in October. Catherine Keith,
of Mount Brown Estates, is chair of the
new association.
Wine consumption
drop causing angst
There’s a new type of gloom both France and Italy had halved over the
developing in some areas past 30 years. The tradition of factory and
of the wine business, as a farm workers having a glass of wine with
consequence of data showing lunch and dinner every day was fading.
wine consumption in many first world Not only is wine consumption falling,
countries is in decline.
it has new alcoholic competitors, with
The latest to raise a red flag was veteran both craft beer and the renewed enthusiast
Kiwi wine writer Michael Cooper. for gin hitting wine sales.
“In the UK, a key export market for Add to that a high proportion
NZ wine, nearly 30 per cent of people of millennials eschewing the booze
aged 16 to 25 now avoid all alcoholic altogether and wine has taken a battering.
beverages, including wine,” Michael said. British pubs have taken a battering
But the trend isn’t new. Last century too, with a quarter having called time
– December 1999 to be precise – The since 2001, a closure rate of 21 a week.
Economist magazine reported that since That said, China has been a bright spot
1982 the world’s consumption of wine for some exporters and those with trusted
had fallen by a quarter.
brands – and premium wine – tend to
The explanation was simple. In the be fairing better in established markets.
big producing and consuming countries And with five million glasses of New
of Western Europe, regular wine Zealand wine consumed every day in
consumption has become less and less the world, its not yet time to pull out
of a daily habit. Wine consumption in the vines.
Red winemakers in
New Zealand gravitate
to either Burgundian
or Bordeaux varieties.
Working for Tom
McDonald propelled
me in the Bordeaux
direction. Tasting his
straight cabernet
sauvignons from the
nineteen fifties and
sixties won me over. In
the early days, Hawke's
Bay winemakers
only had the mass
selection clone to
work with. Today there
are numerous clones
available. Brookfields
started planting
the LC10 clone ten
years ago. It excels in
gravels, so it is ideal
for Ohiti Estate.
Brookfields has
released the 2017
Ohiti Estate Cabernet
Sauvignon and the
2016 Gold Label
Cabernet Merlot – both
wines feature the LC10
clone. It ripens earlier
and exhibits excellent
colour and generous
fruit.
Merry Xmas,
Peter Robertson
BROOKFIELD
VINEYARDS
Phone 06 834 4615
www.brookfieldsvineyard.co.nz
Trade Enquiries
HANCOCKS
Phone 0800 699 463
www.winenzmagazine.co.nz
11