@April NZ House and Garden
Pinot noir is a beloved wine variety in NZ, favoured for its elegantly balanced fruit, florals and lithe profile. It’s an elegant wine so is easy to love – but hard to grow, hence being nicknamed the ‘heartbreak grape’. Its thin-skinned and susceptible to disease, so it took brave wine-making visionaries to attempt to grow pinot here in NZ. Early champions of the wine were told that they were mad.
Luckily for pinot lovers, one such ‘madman’ didn’t listen. Irishman Alan Brady came to Central Otago and planted pinot on a small plot in Gibbston Valley, despite people telling him repeatedly it would had produced the first modern commercial pinot noir in 1973 from Canterbury-grown grapes).
There was no looking back and pinot planting in the region surged from less than 150ha in 1990 to 2000ha by the year 2000. Alan is respected as the godfather of NZ pinot noir and at almost 90 was present at the recent Pinot Noir Conference in Christchurch still with a thirst for knowledge and the desire to share what he has learned along the way.
The three-day event was an opportunity to be inspired by the NZ pinot noir journey and to plan the future for this exciting wine variety.
Today, NZ’s pinot plantings exceed 5700ha. Pinot noir grapevines like a cool climate and thrive in all wine regions from the Wairarapa south as well as in higher altitude regions of Hawke’s Bay. The largest concentration of plantings is in Marlborough.
There is no question that pinot noir is NZ’s most important red grape, so making this wine well represents a level of skill in growing and wine-making that not all wine regions are capable of, regardless of climate. It truly is a reflection of just how special NZ wine is and we want the world to know.
