nz winegrower oct nov 2012

WA I TA K I ✽ C H A I R ’ S R E P OR T ✽ C O OPE R AT I V E S ✽ I N DIC AT OR G R A F T I NG

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FEATURES

10 Regional Cooperatives Hawke’s Bay owner operated growers are

actively working to form a cooperative to make wine, in an effort to improve their individual returns. They aren’t the only ones taking a walk down this path. We look at their reasons and the pros and cons of cooperatives.

12 Profitability Biggest Issue for Growers

The latest MPI Viticultural Review is out, based on models in Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay. It shows weather played a big part in the profitability of growers this year, affecting yields and financial outcomes.

30 Farewell to Chairman of the Board

Stuart Smith steps down after six years as NZWinegrower’s Board Chairman. At the Romeo Bragato Conference he looked back at his period at the helm – a period that could best be described as tumultuous.

42 Waitaki – Corridor of Ice In out latest sub regional breakdown, Max

Marriott looks at one of the newest and most exciting sub regions – the Waitaki. Accolades are flowing for wines from this region – so what makes it so special?

REGULARS

4 Editorial Tessa Nicholson

5 From the CEO Philip Gregan

6 Regional Viewpoint Mike Spratt - Waiheke Island

8 In Brief News from around the country

36 Sommeliers Corner Cameron Douglas

56 Bob’s Blog Bob Campbell MW

70 Calendar Wine Happenings in New Zealand

72 Research Supplement The latest science and research projects

funded by NZ Winegrowers

20

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CONTENTS

50

I S S U E 7 6

FRONT COVER PHOTO:Kirkpatrick Estate Winery Gisborne. Supplied by NZW.

FROM THE EDITOR TESSA NICHOLSON

4 // NZ WINEGROWER OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

EDITOR Tessa [email protected]

CORRESPONDENTS

Auckland: Joelle Thomson [email protected]

Wairarapa: Barbara Gillham [email protected]

Gisborne: Christine [email protected]

Hawkes Bay: Mary Shanahan [email protected]

Nelson: Neil Hodson [email protected]

Canterbury: Jo Burzynska [email protected]

Central Otago: Max Marriott [email protected]

ADVERTISING

Kaye Sutherland Ph: 03 376 5552 Mobille: 021 221 1994 [email protected] www.nzwinegrower.co.nz

CIRCULATION &

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Lorraine Rudelj [email protected] Ph: 09 303 3527 Fax: 09 302 2969

New Zealand Winegrowers PO Box 90 276, Auckland Mail Centre, New Zealand

PUBLISHING &

PRE-PRESS

Rural News Group PO Box 3855, Auckland 1140 Ph: 09 307 0399

Location: Top Floor, 29 Northcroft Street, Takapuna, Auckland 0622

Publisher: Brian Hight

Managing Editor: Adam Fricker

Production: Dave Ferguson,

Rebecca Williams

Published by Rural News Group Ltd under authority of New Zealand Winegrowers (jointly representing Wine Institute of New Zealand Inc and New Zealand Grape Growers Council Inc). Unless directly attributed, opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of Rural News Group and/or its directors or management, New Zealand Winegrowers or its constituent organisations.

Published every second month. One free copy is mailed to every member of the Institute, the Council, the New Zealand Society of Viticulture & Oenology and the New Zealand Vine Improvement Group, and to such other persons or organisations as directed by the owners, with provision for additional copies and other recipients to be on a subscription basis.

ISSN 1174-5223

M ore than 500 people, marquees full of exhibitors, one of the very best keynote speakers, inter-esting research updates and a

return to the Bragato Wine Awards dinner. All in all, the Romeo Bragato Conference 2012 was a success.

The theme was Driving the Export Advantage Through Sustainability, although to be fair there was not a great deal of time given to the finer points of this theme.

Keynote speaker, busi-ness journalist Rod Oram, praised the New Zealand wine industry, saying that of all the sectors in New Zealand, wine was the star performer in terms of sustainability. But there was no room to become complacent.

“You know it is not a destination. You haven’t finally arrived somewhere, where you can sit back and enjoy the surroundings. This is only a weigh mark, a very important one, …but in many ways (in terms of ) sustain-ability we have only just begun.”

It would be impossible to précis his 45 minute presentation, so instead I suggest if you were not present, then you should watch it on the New Zealand Wine website, (you will find it in the events section, under Bragato 2012).

But if you were looking for some sage business advice as the industry moves forward, then motivational speaker, John Anderson, who founded Contiki Tours, was the one to take note of. While it may be difficult to see the correlation between touring Europe and producing wine here in New Zealand, much of what Anderson had to say was extremely relevant. He has a number of mantras, all of which are worth repeating.

One: If you want to achieve exceptional results, you have to be prepared to take risks.

Two: Never under estimate the power of word of mouth advertising.

Three: Don’t take the cheap option. Do it the best you can and go for quality.

Four: Deliver more than you promise Five: The brand is a company’s biggest

asset. You have to protect, enhance, and never let any harm come to your brand.

Each and every one of those could be used as a mission statement by individual wine compa-nies, or New Zealand Wine overall. None more so than number five – regarding protecting the brand. We all know how much Australia paid in terms of image, for the cheap and cheerful style wines they produced during their over supply years. There was concern 18 months ago

that the New Zealand brand was also going down that track, due to the oversupply and the exporting of bulk wine. Thankfully, according to last year’s Strategic Review, our image has not been dented. We are still perceived as producers of high quality wines – although as Lee Suckling points out in this issue, there are some import-ers who have a rather skewed image of the New Zealand wine industry. And some of those images aren’t that pleasant.

Ensuring the success of this industry means more than caring for your indi-vidual triple bottom line – as Anderson succinctly pointed out. Everyone needs to be reading from the same page, promoting the overall brand, delivering quality that is above expectation, and ensuring potential consumers are eager to purchase New Zea-land wine, because of what it delivers.

That will hopefully deliver a sustainable future for everyone. ■

“Of all the sectors in New Zealand, wine was the star performer in terms of sustainability.” - Rod Oram

NZ WINEGROWER OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 // 5

FROM THE CEO PHILIP GREGAN

T hat is quite a turnaround from the sentiment of the past few years when the response was gener-

ally a universal ‘Tough!’ or ‘It can’t get much worse!’

The industry is certainly not out of the woods yet as a recent winery receivership and low returns for growers visibly dem-onstrate. However the fact senti-ment is becoming much more optimistic was reflected in the tone of discussion at the recent Bragato Conference which was definitely more upbeat than a year ago.

Assuming the corner has been turned (and we would be unwise to make too many assumptions on that issue) the industry should now ask itself the question ‘How do we prevent a repeat of the past few years?’

Because it is certainly some-thing to be avoided if we can. Since 2008 for virtually everyone in the industry profits have been lower, asset values have fallen, everyone has worked harder and longer for lower returns.

For some individuals the costs have been crippling – businesses have been closed, employees made redundant and livelihoods lost

So how do we avoid this hap-

pening again? Can we avoid it?

Quality Information - The Vineyard Register

The 2011 PWC Strategic Review made some important recommendations on this mat-ter. First, PWC rightly pointed out that our vineyard area data

in 2008 was not accurate enough and as such we could not assess with certainty the productive potential of the New Zealand vineyard. PWC recommended development of a vineyard reg-ister, which would also serve an important biosecurity function should we have a PSA-like bios-ecurity problem in the industry.

The NZW Board acted on the PWC recommendation and in recent months data from over 1700 vineyards has been entered on the Register. This data is now in the process of being ‘sense’ checked. We expect to have the final numbers from the Register available for the industry imme-diately following the October

Board meeting. We are confident the data set in the Register will be most accurate available in the past 10 years and possibly even longer.

The first year of the Vine-yard Register has not, however, been a perfect exercise. There have been some first time issues which we will ensure are addressed so they have been fixed by the time the registration update process commences in 2013.

The BanksThe second specific recom-

mendation from PWC was the need to engage in a strategic and long term way with the major providers of capital to the indus-try – the banks, as they were the agents who funded much of the growth of the sector through the boom period 2002 – 2008.

NZW has been engaging with the banks from 2008 onwards and PWC emphasised the impor-tance of this. They suggested contact needed to be maintained on a regular basis to keep the banks informed of the latest developments in the industry. PWC recommended in effect that NZW seek to act as the insti-tutional memory for the banks to remind them in the future of the

events of the 2008-2012 period and the pain that caused for all concerned.

NZW has completed one round of meetings with the banks post the Strategic Review and is about to engage on another round pre-Christmas. The focus will be on updating the banks on developments post vintage 2012, discussion about how the vintage shortfall will impact the sector and providing the updated vineyard data from the 2012 Vineyard Register.

Boom and bust cycles are certainly not unique to wine or agriculture for that matter. Recent years have seen the dotcom bubble and many other examples of ‘irrational exuber-ance’. The roots of these boom bust cycles have been discussed for many years and in many sectors a variety of steps have been taken to try and manage the cycle, and despite all the efforts they still seem to recur.

Let’s hope our sector does a better job than others of manag-ing the economic cycle in our industry. As a first step lets all promise not to forget the pain of the past few years (assuming things are getting better) and to remind each other of the pain it caused from time to time. ■

HOW DO WE STOP IT ALL HAPPENING AGAIN ...?

On a recent visit to Hawkes Bay the first three industry people I met responded with one of two words to the enquiry ‘How are things going?’ The answers were either ‘Good!’ or ‘Great!’

Data from over 1700 vineyards has been entered on the Register.


REGIONALVIEWPOINT

W aiheke Island is located a short ferry ride from Auckland and is one of New Zealand’s smallest

and most distinctive viticulture regions.

Waiheke is home to 7,000 per-manent residents and approxi-mately 92 square kilometres, it has long been a holiday spot for New Zealanders and overseas visitors. The island’s beautiful beaches, unspoiled bush, pastoral settings, picturesque bays, quaint villages, and hospitality services have made it a must-visit spot on every traveler’s itinerary. It also is home to nearly 30 artisan vine-yards and wineries, 22 of which are commercial businesses and mem-bers of the Waiheke Winegrowers Association.

Waiheke is a renowned wine region producing critically acclaimed artisan wines and dis-tinctive wine and cuisine experi-ences. Fourteen members have cafés and restaurants (Cable Bay, Goldie, Kennedy Point, Man O War, Miro, Mudbrick, Passage Rock, Peacock Sky, Poderi Crisci, Saratoga, Stonyridge, Te Motu, View East and Wild on Waiheke) and eight others also offer cellar door wine tasting (Destiny Bay, Edbrooke, Hay Paddock, Jurassic Ridge, Obsidian, Soho, Te Rere,

and Woodside Hill). As a winegrowing region

Waiheke Island is tiny. With only 180 hectares of land under cultiva-tion, it represents about one-half of one percent of New Zealand’s plantings. And considering that New Zealand represents less than one percent of the world’s pro-duction, Waiheke wine is indeed scarce. But what Waiheke produc-ers lack in volume they make up for in diversity and quality.

Waiheke winegrowers are able to successfully grow eighteen dif-ferent varieties (twelve red and six white). Seventy percent of the island’s production is red varieties – principally dominated by Syrah and the five classic Bordeaux vari-etals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Mer-lot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot). The white varieties are led by Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Viognier.

Winegrowing on Waiheke Island is an expensive proposi-tion. Land costs are high, labor is limited, and all supplies need to be shipped in from the mainland. As a result, Waiheke producers can’t afford to make even average wine, which is why the local indus-try association took a bold step a number of years ago to protect the reputation, quality, and branding of Waiheke wine.

As artisans, Waikeke Wine-growers recognized that the only economic platform they could stand on was quality and distinc-tiveness. Mother Nature did her part by providing the soil, site, and climate needed to ripen red varieties, along with the temper-ing influence of a marine exposure which provides perfect matura-tion conditions for elegant and expressive fruit.

It was up to the winegrowers to protect themselves from those inside or outside the association who would attempt to derive brand benefits without meeting minimum standards.

For this reason the Winegrower Association developed the Certi-fied Waiheke Wine program. The principles are astonishingly simple and easy to understand by writ-ers, consumers, and trades people alike. If you are going to produce a wine with “Waiheke” on the label, it must be made from 100% Waiheke Island-grown grapes, be part of a certified sustainable grape-growing program, and have been independently verified as free from standard wine faults as defined by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority as a condition of export.

In this age of spin, hyper-bole, and misrepresentation, the

Waiheke Certified Wine mark is simple, clear, and compelling: A fault-free, sustainably grown, 100% Waiheke wine.

Although Waiheke is a tiny wine growing region and the wines are often in short supply, it occupies a big place in the hearts of local and international visitors. It also demonstrates what a group of determined and creative New Zealand winegrowers can do when they are given the soil, site and cli-mate of a very special place.Note: Portions of this article were adapted from the book Grape-a-hol: How Big Business is Subvert-ing Artisan Winemaking and the Future of Fine Wine, by permission of the authors. ■

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Hawke’s Bay

Bay’s Boutique Wines Go To Town

Seven boutique Hawke’s Bay wineries took over the Khandallah town hall for a day in August to promote their wines to Wellingto-nians.

For the second year, the Hawke’s Bay Boutique Winemakers’ Group set up at the newly-renovated hall, with members offering samples to some 200 tasters largely unfamil-iar with their wines.“People really appreciated meeting the win-emakers and chatting about the past vintage,” says Roland Norman from Tukipo River Estate. “For us it was a chance to add to our databases and promote Hawke’s Bay wine and the region as a must-visit destination.”Wineries attending the Wellington Wine Fair were Lime Rock, Salvare, Unison, Tukipo River Estate, Ash Ridge, Beach House, and Hawkes Ridge.The group is limited to wineries producing less than 8000 cases and encompasses 15 of the region’s smaller wineries.

Wedding GiftA Wellington bride-to-be will be painting the town red after her aunt gifted her a party from Hawke’s Bay wineries.Kristine McLachlan scored the party prize at Hot Red Hawke’s Bay in Wellington and is donating it – and the company of winemakers

Tim Turvey of Clearview Estate and Miles Dineen from Crossroads Winery – to niece Gemma Browne for a hen’s night celebrated ahead of her February wedding.Hosted by Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers, Hot Red Hawke’s Bay events were held in Auckland and Wellington over the winter. The road show expo was launched eight years ago and showcases the region’s premium red wines in larger New Zealand and Australian cities.

Villa Maria’s new AcquisitionVilla Maria Estate has purchased the vineyard and winery assets of Te Awa Winery in Hawke’s Bay. The acquisition of the Hawke’s Bay wine business strengthens Villa’s position as the largest vineyard owner of the renowned Gimblett Gravels region. Te Awa was owned by Julian Robertson, an active philanthropist, who is well known for his generous donation of artwork at an esti-mated value of $115 million to the Auckland Art Gallery as well as the development of the luxury resorts Kauri Cliffs in Northland, Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay and Matakauri Lodge in Queenstown.

Villa Maria launches Mandarin website Villa Maria Estate has unveiled its fully translated Mandarin website in China, at an online launch event through the social

media platform, Weibo (China’s equivalent to Twitter ); a first for Villa Maria and for New Zealand wine in China.After having successfully launched a Mandarin mobile

site in May coinciding with their 50 vintage celebration events in China, the iconic New Zealand wine brand now has its first fully translated website.

With 538 million internet users in China with over half active on Weibo, being seen online is deemed critical for any brand serious about building their presence in China.

Auckland

Roland Norman from Tukipo River Estate tempts Wellingtonians to wines from boutique Hawkes Bay producers.


Matariki Wines in ReceivershipHawke’s Bay’s much-awarded Matariki Wines has been put into receivership and is likely to be sold to recover

$10.3m owed to creditors.The receivers, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, have said the business will probably be offered for sale as a whole or in two parts – the vine-yard in Gimblett Gravels and the adjoining winery on the outskirts of Hastings.John and Rosemary O’Connor, then a husband-and-wife team, established Matariki after returning from Germany, where John studied winemaking. The first vintage was in 1997 and the winery was subsequently built to produce up to 35,000 cases a year.Blended from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and Malbec, Quin-tology was the company’s flagship wine.

However, Matariki produced a range of highly-regarded premium wine styles.John Fisk of PricewaterhouseCooper said the company, owned by O’Connor Family Hold-ings, had been overwhelmed by production and distribution costs. Matariki employed 11 staff when it was placed in receivership owing about $10m to secured creditors and $300,000 to unsecured creditors.

Marlborough

Nautilus Estate has just become an official sponsor of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, in time for the company’s 60th birthday. They even have their own ballet dancer, Antonia Hewitt, through the Partner a Dancer pro-gramme. Nautilus Estate marketing manager Katy Prescott says 2013 is a big year for the ballet, and the company wants to be there raising a glass, cheering them on and saying thanks for their contribution to New Zealand arts.

Nelson

Plans are now well underway for the Nelson Aromatics Sym-posium.It will take place on 1-2 February 2013 at the Mou-tere Hills Com-munity Centre.The focus will be on Gruner Velt-liner and Riesling wines, with the key note speaker, Markus Huber from Austria.Symposium organisers have just confirmed that the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra will be performing at the dinner at Neudorf Vineyard on the Friday night!Further details here: http://aromatics2013.wineart.co.nz/ ■


NEWVENTURE

A dozen or so Hawke’s Bay owner-operator grape growers are actively working to form a coop-

erative to make wine – a move designed to boost their farm gate returns.

The group’s focus is on produc-ing three or four premium styles – Hawke’s Bay reds and Chardonnay – for bulk-buying customers from outside the region.

Among those committed to the venture are Xan Harding, Chris Howell and Mal McLennan, long-standing and well-known identi-ties in the industry at regional and national levels.

Described as “the one with his fingers on the strings”, Harding told New Zealand Winegrower that because the group of like-minded growers was still finalis-ing the legal entity, he could offer few details about what form the endeavour might take – it might be a cooperative, a partnership or a conventional limited company.

“It’s a question of what can be told,” he said of the fledgling venture. “While we are keen to get the story out there, we are not yet sufficiently progressed to go fully public.”

Harding said the enterprise would be small scale. “It won’t be bigger than Ben Hur – we are looking at about 300-400 tonnes in the first year.” He agreed, how-ever, that other growers could be interested in joining the venture once it was established.

“We know there is a market

among wineries not domiciled in Hawke’s Bay and interested in including this region’s wines in their portfolios. It’s about chang-ing the model so there is a choice, which should in the long-term be better for our family of members.”

While maintaining their indi-vidual relationships with winer-ies, the member growers’ aim is to have wine made for the coopera-tive by a winery in Hawke’s Bay.

This year’s mediocre vintage has been a trigger for the initiative, coming on the back of three years of declining returns and wineries not renewing growers’ supply contracts.

“For some intending members, the actions of traders in Sauvignon Blanc in the Hawke’s Bay market have been part of the genesis of the beast,” said Harding, referring to hard-headed bargaining by buy-ers seeking fruit. “But while that’s been the start point for some, it’s only part of the story.”

A more general feeling of dis-satisfaction centred on the cur-rent model for the relationship between wineries and growers and the big pricing gap that existed in the short spot market.

“A number of growers, myself included, received meagre pay-ment for some of their 2012 fruit only to see it traded at high value in bulk markets. This gap may only be a short-term thing, but it gives us the opportunity to get out and develop a winery customer base with lower risk.

“The push to form a coopera-

tive is not a symptom of a fight that’s going on – it’s more about recognising that the current model does not deliver sustainable prof-its for growers and the opportu-nity to have a different model that can on average be better for our members.

“We said to ourselves, if we don’t change what we’re doing we’ll just end up as peasant farm-ers with no-one to buy our vine-yards when we retire. This is about creating a sustainable future for family farmers.”

By taking advantage of efficien-cies of scale, both through vertical integration and pool purchasing, the family of growers saw the opening for presenting their own offering.

“We don’t think branding has

to be our end point and the prod-uct is more likely to be cloudy rather than finished wine. We don’t want to be holding wine for a long time and are a very long way, if ever, from branding.”

Harding said 2012 had not, on average, been a stellar year for the region, but demand was continuing to grow for Hawke’s Bay’s wines due, in large meas-ure, to the promotional efforts of Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers and the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowing Association.

The aim in creating a com-pletely different structure for producing premium regional wine was to underpin the viability of the grape growers who were members of the cooperative. ■[email protected]

HAWKE’S BAY COOPERATIVEM A R Y S H A N A H A N

Volunteer firefighter, Xan Harding of Black Bridge vineyard is supporting moves by Hawke’s Bay grape growers to form a collective.


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H awkes Bay growers aren’t alone in wanting to take control of their destiny by forming a coopera-

tive. GroCo in Gisborne has been operating for the past two years, and now a number of Marlbor-ough growers are also looking to establish and run their own wine company.

Is this move to cooperatives a sign of the times, or is it a natural progression that growers want control of their fruit from the ground through to the market?

John Clarke, former Presi-dent of Gisborne Winegrowers, believes the emergence of GroCo was a result of the difficult times.

“It was definitely a result of Pernod Ricard pulling out of Gisborne. There were dozens of growers who were left stranded with termination of contracts lit-erally halfway through the growing season. What were the options? Either pull them out and turn to other crops, or else become part of something like a cooperative.”

The subject of cooperatives came up at the Romeo Bragato conference, when Rabobank’s

Marc Soccio asked the question of those attending – is there still a place for cooperatives in today’s wine industry? Citing Italy, where cooperatives are entrenched, he noted that three of the top five Italian wine labels are coop-eratives, and around 35-40% of Italy’s wine supply is controlled by cooperatives.

“Cooperative production of quality wines (DOC & DOCG) increased from 39.1% in 1996 to 51.8% in 2012,” he said.

It’s not surprising cooperatives are such a large part of some European countries – given many of the members have only a few hectares of grapes and need the scale of such an entity to be financially viable. But in New Zealand, are they the answer?

“There are certainly pros and cons and some are better managed than others. I think they are inherently difficult to manage,” Soccio said.

The reason is because there are so many voices and interests, which can make it hard to gain consensus to what direction the cooperative should he heading,

what it stands for and just what product it should be delivering.

In terms of pros, Soccio had this to say.

“There is the ability to pool capital and access opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise be able to. By contributing a little bit each, you can build something. Whether that be the ability to process your product, build a brand or market it.

“The other pro is the ability to pool resources. In the wine industry it may be sharing harvesters or other equipment, allocating the fixed cost across a much broader area. There is also the ability to lift the technical ability of its members. Someone running a 5ha vineyard probably can’t afford a consultant and certainly can’t afford a permanent vineyard manager. So a cooperative does offer those sort of agronomic advantages.”

In terms of cons; there are a few he warned.

“I think the real risk is the lack of strategic direction. You have to build real consensus and buy in, and you require a real vision for the cooperative and what you

want to achieve. They can also be undercapitalised if members aren’t involved or committed enough. If that happens they tend to run out of steam.”

While Soccio believes many cooperatives emerge during tough times as farmers try to capture more value at the farm gate, he believes the best time to establish one is when the sun is shining.

“I think you are better off from a cash flow perspective. You will have more financial security to achieve what you want and get it going before the times get tough. You will then be able to benefit when the cycle turns.” ■[email protected]

THE PROS AND CONST E S S A N I C H O L S O N

Marc Soccio


VITICULTUREREVIEW

T he annual Viticulture Review undertaken by the Ministry of Primary Industries1 shows the La

Nina weather pattern over the 2011/12 growing season impacted heavily on yields and grower prof-itability.

The Review concentrates on New Zealand’s two largest grape-growing regions, Hawkes Bay and Marlborough, accounting for 84 per cent of the 2012 vintage. In the case of Hawkes Bay the model is based on 12.5 hectares with data from 15 vineyards spread across the Heretaunga Plains.

Merlot is the dominant variety, followed by Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. In Marlborough the model is based on 30 producing hectares with data from 18 vineyards. Seventy-five per cent is Sauvignon Blanc, the rest Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Gris.Hawkes Bay

Of the two regions, Hawkes Bay was hit the hardest by the climatic conditions, for the third year in a row. The model achieved a net trading loss before tax of $39,300 in 2011/12 – “The worst financial outcome since the start of viticulture monitoring in 2004/05.”

It has left many growers, according to the report, “feeling stressed and questioning why they are still in the industry. They are anxious about the potential impact of another year of poor growing conditions. Reduced inputs and deferred spending are also making growers uneasy and

feeling they are increasing the risk to the crop and their business.”

Due to rainfall throughout the growing season, firstly during flowering in December and then at fruit set in January, yields were way below expected targets. Further rain events created high disease pressure, particularly in terms of botrytis, powdery and downy mildew. Veraison was two weeks later than average for some varieties and the cool weather leading into harvest caused plenty of concern.

The end result was yields much lower than last year, and a reduction in the prices paid to growers, particularly for red varieties.

In terms of yields, it was a decrease across the board.

• The model’s production was 6.8 tonnes per hectare – down 20%

• Chardonnay down 8%• Pinot Noir sparkling down

30%• Pinot Gris down 33%• Sauvignon Blanc down 30%• Merlot and Syrah well below

expectationWhen it came to prices, most

growers had budgeted on an increase in price for the 2011/12 season. However the reality was a drop in the weighted average price, of 5%, from $1240 last year to $1175 a tonne this year. The varieties most impacted were Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

Understandably, the number one issue for the model’s growers, is a lack of profitability.

The vineyard model achieved a cash-operating surplus of $6500 in 2011/12, only a fifth of that achieved the previous year.

The report said, “This surplus is inadequate to cover debt servicing expenses for the business, or living expenses.

“The model’s debt level has increased by $10,000, or 2%, to fund losses as a result of lower income. Typically this is via overdraft or drawdown of revolving credit facilities.”

Efforts to rein in expenditure have been successful, although in the end they have done little to help alleviate the lower income.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom in the region. The lower national vintage in 2012 is making growers optimistic that grape prices will improve in 2012/13. Monitored growers hope that if prices improve somewhat, with a return to average yields and quality targets being achieved, most businesses with a supply

WEATHER AFFECTST E S S A N I C H O L S O N


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contract will make a small profit in 2012/13.Marlborough

The model in this region was also worse off than last year, but not to the extent of Hawkes Bay. The vineyard profit before tax was down 42% on the previous year, with the net cash income down 16%.

Yields were affected by the weather conditions at flowering with Sauvignon Blanc down 16%, Chardonnay-Mendoza and Clone 15 and Pinot Noir yields down 43%. Overall, the Marlborough vineyard model experienced a 20% decrease in yields.

However the fruit harvest was of very high quality with many describing it as excellent and “superior to the previous year.”

Predictions last year were for a small price rise per tonne for fruit and that did eventuate, with the average price per tonne increasing 4% to $1410. It is the first increase for Sauvignon Blanc since the downturn began after 2007/08, when the variety was fetching on average $2435 per tonne.

There is a wide spectrum of contract grape growing businesses included in the monitored group. Half reported a profit before tax, while the other half reported a loss. The average was a profit

before tax of $96,900 or $3230 per hectare. That is 42% less than the profit achieved last year – again due to the drop in yields.

C a s h f l o w s h a v e b e e n challenged, as most small to medium sized wineries are paying for the grapes in instalments, prompting some growers to change to supplying larger wineries.The Future

While it has been a tough year all round for the wine industry, there is optimism about the future, given the over supply situation for the time being has been corrected. The Marlborough vineyard model is budgeting on an 18% increase

in yield next year. This equates to an average yield of 11.4 tonnes per hectare, compared with the 9.7 tonnes this year. The model is also predicting a “conservative” $90 (6%) increase in the average price to $1500 a tonne.

In Hawkes Bay the net cash income for the model is budgeted to increase to $156,500 – up 58% on this year. Yields are expected to return to average levels, with the model budgeting on an average of 8.6 tonnes per hectare.

“There is much uncertainty surrounding price expectations for the year ahead. Most growers believe prices will lift $280 a tonne on average, due to quality

parameters and brix levels being met and an increase in demand for some varieties.”

Prices for Merlot and other red varieties are budgeted to return to levels of recent years and the increased demand for Syrah is expected to lift the price of that variety.

There is also optimism about the potential of new markets, especially China, for Hawkes Bay reds.

For the full MPI Viticulture Monitoring Report, visit www.mpi.govt.nz ■

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I t goes without saying that New Zealand wines are revered across the globe; known as some of the best

New World offerings from the grape. As we ship some 75 percent of our wine overseas it gains award after accolade, notably amongst professional judges with the world’s finest palates.

Reasonably priced Kiwi wines can even outdo four figure inter-national bottles. Notably at the World’s Top 20 Pinot Noirs com-

petition in Pasadena, USA last year.

The $200 Martinborough Vine-yard Reserve Pinot Noir 1998 out-shone the $7000 1990 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tache with a No.1 overall rank.

Always important to the New Zealand winemaker though, is what international buyers and consumers think of our wines – for they, after all, are the reason such a high proportion of our product is exported.

HOW FINE IS OUR WINE?L E E S U C K L I N G

Gabrielle Simmers


Wine exporter Gabrielle Sim-mers has spent the last few years establishing relationships across the world and gauging the market permeability for Kiwi wines. She now spends 10 months a year out-side of New Zealand to do so. And while our wines are celebrated internationally, we still have a lot of work to do, she says.

“Few of our best wines, and particularly the more pure, natu-ral wines, reach export markets.

“The fact that these wines are not well distributed damages our reputation as a wine producing nation.”

Simmers’ export focus is the USA and Canada, Asia, and North-ern Europe, particularly Belgium. After living and working in these areas, she has been surprised to

learn what she calls the ‘true per-ception’ of New Zealand wines in the global market.

“I was shocked to realise that our wines are generally considered to be from poor vineyards on the wrong sites - generally on valley floors rather than on slopes where the best vineyards are normally planted,” she says.

Simmers has observed an opin-ion that New Zealand wines are from “bad plantings” (wide rows and wide spacings), and are also from “bad clones”.

“A lot of our clones were brought in for quantity not qual-ity, so unless [winegrowers] are active in seeking great clones we are stuck with a lot of inferior genes.”

H o n g Ko n g - b a s e d w i n e

Chuck Hayward


educator Debra Meiburg, who holds a Master of Wine, believes this doesn’t matter to consumers, and doesn’t impinge on New Zea-land’s wine reputation.

“Th e ave ra ge consume r doesn’t understand valley versus hillside plantings, doesn’t know a clone from a drone, and has only a vague idea as to what soil might be (our soil is concrete),” she says. “But what they do know is that New Zealand wines are pure, fresh and vibrant.”

US-based Australian and New Zealand wine buyer Chuck Hayward comments, “While the slopes versus flats argument might apply to Marlborough, I doubt that Otago could be considered [to have] bad aspects.

“New Zealand is a new country so there’s still a lot to learn about hillside plantings but in regards to vineyard input, [Simmers’] obser-vations are so ‘way out there’ as to defy logic.”

Simmers’ exporting company is purely focussed on organic, bio-dynamic and natural wines.

“Buyers want pure wine, with-out additives and which has been

farmed on great terroir meaning a good site and farmed well - i.e. organically or biodynamically - not with loads of chemicals which kill everything in sight,” she adds. “We generally do not offer this to our buyers, meaning our wines are generally not of the quality, or style, that international markets are looking for.”

Meiburg disagrees. “I would hold the opposite to be true.

“In Hong Kong, wines from New Zealand are viewed as afford-able high quality selections, pro-duced with careful handling, passion and a gentle impact on the environment.

“ Pe r h a p s b e c a u s e K i w i winemakers make a sincere effort to pass frequently through our [international] markets to meet with the wine trade and the consumers, this messaging is clear.”

Peter McAtamney, of Sydney-based Wine Business Solutions, sees the value in both [Simmers’ and Meiburg’s] viewpoints, and believes New Zealand’s international wine reputation is threatened only at the high price

point level. “New Zealand is fortunate, in

my view, in that it has without any doubt, the best pure fruit flavours in the world. This has enabled New Zealand to produce some of the best value premium wines suitable for everybody [except] the highly sophisticated drinker,” he says.

The trouble is, McAtamney continues, “You need that highly sophisticated drinker to have the complete country brand. Without that, your competitors will eventu-ally undermine you.”

From Wine Business Solu-tions’ on-premise research into the UK market (the company’s Canadian research produced very similar results) New Zea-land scores favourably at low price points, however, “New Zealand performs poorly when it comes to listings above £60 per bottle,” McAtamney confirms. “France, the US, Italy and even Australia have much greater share of their listings above these price points.” (See graph below).

A small group of New Zealand producers (less than 1% of export-ers) enjoy the high priced share in

mention, McAtamney notes, “But there really needs to be a transfor-mation of what smaller producers are looking to achieve in terms of quality and price points, both for them to survive economically and for the New Zealand industry to maintain and build its reputation.”

Simmers believes market penetration into more high-end international restaurants is an important place to start. She notes Kiwi chef Peter Gordon’s Michelin-starred New York res-taurant Public as an example – it has not one New Zealand wine on the list. “This kind of thing is the key issue,” she says.

Simmers’ ideal solution is an improvement in efficiency to get the top-shelf product to the cus-tomer faster. “We must look for ways to improve logistics, as that is actually the biggest problem we face in the premium sector,” she says.

Negociants NZ’s Clive Wes-ton believes all New Zealand fine wines need a reputational push internationally because “we are a relatively small producer of high quality wines”.

Most importantly, fine Kiwi wines need market distinction in Asia, where we are “least known”.

“NZTE has identified the mar-kets of Northern Europe, Asia and the USA as three prime long term markets for premium New Zea-land food and wine,” he says.

“Good things take time, and it will take at least a decade of concerted and consistent brand messaging to build New Zealand fine wine in Northern Europe and the USA.

“For Asia, progress will be slow but steady, however a couple of decades of patience, investment and persistence will be required to influence and change percep-tions.”[email protected] ■

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RESEARCHUPDATE

L eafroll virus can decimate a vineyard within a very short period. Well known for showing early visual

symptoms in red varieties, the issue in New Zealand is the major-ity of our vines are white and the signs of leafroll are impossible to accurately visually identify .

Mission Estate viticulturist Caine Thompson told the Romeo Bragato Conference that white varieties have been the white elephant in the leafroll room for a long time.

“It is almost impossible to detect, yet it is occurring within

all the white varieties and is in all the main wine regions of New Zealand,” he said. “In Hawke’s Bay we are seeing it in Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc. We have randomly tested and we have got between 70% and right up to 100%.”

Testing can be undertaken, but the cost makes it almost prohibi-tive for most growers. With that background, Thompson said it became apparent an alternative method was required to iden-tify the virus. In what is a world first, he has worked alongside South Africa’s Professor Gerhard

Pietersen to develop an indicator grafting system that can provide visual identification for white varieties.

To create an indicator graft, a red variety bud is grafted into the trunk of the white vine. Three red varieties provide excellent visual signs of the disease, so in the trials, Thompson used Pinot Noir bud wood, (although Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon would also have been suitable).

The three white varieties of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Sau-vignon Blanc were the vines used in the grafting trial.

The process involved making a T cut halfway up side of the trunk of the vine, peeling back the flaps and inserting a clean virus tested bud into the cut and taping it up. The bud will then grow separately from the rest of the vine, at a posi-tion where it is clearly visible. If the host vine does have leafroll, it will become very obvious to the naked eye, via the grafted shoot.

During the trial, 50 Sauvignon Blanc, 400 Pinot Gris and 300 Chardonnay vines were assessed by this method. The grafts on all three white varieties showed visual signs of leafroll within the

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first year. “This means we can walk

through our vineyard, see which vines are expressing signs of leaf

roll virus and can then adopt the same process of roguing that we would with our reds,” Thompson said. “We can identify, tag, map

and remove those vines from the vineyard.”

This is no one year wonder either, as the shoots were found

to lignify and were consequently spur pruned, leaving an indicator bud remaining for the years that come.

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Visible signs of leafroll virus in from left: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris.


The budwood grafted onto the trunk of the white vine.

The shoot tends to grow up into the canopy.

Given the cost of ELISA testing is $15 a vine, Thompson said this indicator grafting method works out a lot cheaper.

• Roughly 90 cents per vine to graft – plus the cost of bud wood. (In the trial the bud wood was pro-vided free of charge by Riversun)

• Annual costs of caring for the graft is approximately 13 cents per vine – this includes removing fruit bunches, and pruning.

The results will provide many New Zealand growers with a means to protect their vines at a cost that is not insurmountable. Given the initial success rate after just one year, more research will be undertaken in the next season.

More information on this research is available on the NZWine website, on the mem-bers page. ■


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VINEYARDS, A VIRUS AND A BLOG

Eliminating Leafroll 3 virus from the national vineyard is a key research priority for New Zealand Winegrowers – and a goal shared by many growers and viticulturists around the country.That’s why the topic is covered on a regular basis at industry conferences and workshops (and in this magazine). That’s also why the New Zealand Winegrowers Virus Elimination Project – co-funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries (Sustainable Farming Fund) – continues to explore the many challenges of managing Leafroll 3 through a series of trials involving vine removal and replants, hygiene practices and insect (mealybug) control.Controlling Leafroll 3 is above all a community issue. Those working at the coalface of virus elimination consistently express a need for more information, dialogue and support to help them in their efforts. In late September, a new channel was launched to do just that.

“Virus-free vineyards – the blog” is written by members of the Virus Elimination Project and hosted in the Research section of New Zealand Winegrowers website: www.nzwine.com. Updated every month, the blog is designed to highlight appropriate seasonal actions in the vineyard, provide additional tips and guidance, and answer questions from readers so that other growers can benefit from the information exchange. “The work accomplished by the Virus Elimination Project is recognised overseas as being ‘world first’ in terms of its unprecedented scale,” notes Simon Hooker, General Manager of Research at New Zealand Winegrowers. “Practical and easy-to-understand communication channels – like the blog – help to ensure that our industry keeps up to date with the best information available from the research programme.”

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RESEARCHUPDATE

D efoliation is a vital part of cool climate grape growing, for two major reasons. To open up the

foliage to allow sun exposure for bunches, and to increase airflow to help prevent disease. But when is the most effective time to remove leaves, both in terms of the fruit and also the ensuing wine?

This is the question Dr Mark Krasnow from EIT in Hawke’s Bay

has been endeavouring to answer. He says the question of timing is a vital one.

“Because the vine is not stand-ing still, it is continuing to develop. So if you remove your leaves too early, you can get regrowth, undo-ing what you have just done. On the other hand if you remove leaves too late, you may miss the window to beneficially affect your crop.”

Over the past two seasons,

Krasnow trialled three different timings of leaf removal on a range of varieties in the Hawke’s Bay, including removing leaves prior to flowering. This is not something undertaken here in New Zealand, and Krasnow admits it’s a “bit of an odd ball”.

“If you read any viticulture book it says this is precisely the time you do not remove leaves, because this is when then the next

season’s bunches are develop-ing. Therefore this period is very important for yield formation. But this (timing) is gaining momen-tum in Europe and the US.”

The trial saw the six bottom leaves removed from the vine by hand or defoliation using a sucker/cutter mechanical leaf remover. There were some issues with mechanised removal at this stage as a lot of shoot tips were also

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removed. This can potentially lead to a lot of lateral regrowth and produce a bad microclimate in the bunch zone during ripening.

Given Krasnow describes the pre flowering defoliation as an oddball idea – it’s interesting to note there is some rationale behind it. The idea is to purposely sabotage your vines’ ability to do photosynthesis at such an impor-tant time – which will reduce the amount of energy for pollination and fruit set.

“So you actually end up with fewer berries per bunch, creating a looser bunch less prone to rot initiation and spread,” he said. “What we found was Merlot and Chardonnay were particularly responsive to earlier defoliation, with much less dense bunches. But strangely, Sauvignon Blanc did not respond in the same way. There was not a huge reduction in yield. In fact it was the opposite effect to what we saw in the other varieties. Sauvignon Blanc actually increased bunch compactness due to early defoliation.

“In terms of Cabernet, which had about half the shoot tips removed, we had a huge reduction in yield. It wasn’t just in bunch weight though, bunch number was also reduced, so we are not sure if there was bunch abscission here, or something else going on to give

us these incredibly low yields.”Berry growth was not affected

by the pre flowering defoliation, which surprised Krasnow.

“In general when you remove nearly half of the fruit off the vine, you expect a compensatory sizing of the remaining fruit,” he said. “One of the best things about this early defoliation is you get a crop reduction in most varieties, but you don’t get that compensation in the size of the berries. So you end up limiting your crop, which is something that, at least for ultra premium red wine, is done every year anyway. Plus you potentially get a bunch that is a little less prone to rot.”

And in terms of the impact on grape composition – the pre flow-ering defoliation had little to no effect. There was no noticeable difference in Brix, pH or TA in Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay, and very limited effect in Caber-net Sauvignon and Merlot. Which means the odd ball could well be a potential method in future years, Krasnow said.

“If you are happy with the com-position of your wine, but you still have to send a crew through to drop crop and you have potential rot issues, then maybe this is a technique that bears a little more investigation.” ■[email protected]

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CHAIR’SFAREWELL

W here have we come from? Well as Einstein would say it’s all rela-tive.

Take a generational view ... in 30 years we have grown from a small domestically, focused relatively low quality industry to something much, much greater.

Against the toughest international competition we have gone;• From zero exports to $1.2 billion• From nowhere to the world’s 10th

largest wine exporter by value • From nowhere to having the 2nd

highest export wine price glob-ally

• From nowhere to New Zealand’s

8th most valuable export product• From nowhere to setting the

global benchmark for Sauvignon Blanc and creating serious rep-utations for Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay and other styles.

These are singular achieve-ments. We should be very proud of them and so should our fellow

New Zealanders.The supply imbalance that

had long been predicted by some finally came to fruition in 2008 to the surprise of others.

The timing could not have been much worse – the coinci-dence with the Global Financial crisis and then the global recession

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created real problems. But those were the cards we were dealt. Prof-itability has fallen and times have been tough, very tough.

From New Zealand Winegrow-ers’ perspective, in post 2008 meetings we challenged the indus-try to be demand led, we stressed the importance of quality, of yield control, we alerted you all to risks of export of unbranded bulk wine, and of the importance of growing the market.

The industry responded boldly to the challenges facing us. Between 2008 and today total New Zealand sales have grown 79% to more than 240 million litres - 79% growth in a time of global financial crisis and recession!

As a result of that sales growth, we have largely addressed the vol-ume challenge that resulted from the 2008 and 2009 vintages. The consequence is that vintages of 300,000 tonnes or more are no longer the threat they presented just two or three years ago; rather they are now seen as an opportu-nity.

But growth in volume came at cost as we all know. Lower grape and wine prices have been the order of the day.

But there was a bigger ques-tion about cost that was debated

in the industry - what had been the cost to our reputation as a quality producer?

This was one of the questions that we asked PriceWaterhouse-Coopers to answer when they conducted our Strategic Review in late 2011. Their answer - despite the supply imbalance, despite the tough economic times, despite some price erosion, the reputa-tion of New Zealand as a quality wine producer was largely intact.

So ... here we are today, slightly battered and bruised, but with our greatest asset – our reputation - intact.

That is a great starting point for the next phase in our develop-ment.So what of the future?

The PriceWaterhouseCoop-ers Report makes it clear there are significant opportunities for New Zealand wine. Their view is that those development oppor-tunities are greatest in North America, Asia, especially China, and in Northern Europe. PWC val-ued those opportunities at $500 million by 2016.

Our first task is to concentrate on growing the value rather than the volume of our sales – that means investing in brands, in our reputation. Growing value will

restore profitability to the sector, something that is badly needed.

Second, remember the lessons from 2008. Market led yield man-agement must be a part of every business plan for each and every grower and each and every winery. Otherwise the past four years will not be a dim and distant memory; rather they will be back before you know it.

Diversity is vital. Small and large wineries, regions, inter–regional blends, single vineyard wines, organics, biodynamics, natural wines ... we need all these and more expressed in a unique New Zealand way. Diversity cre-ates interest and interest creates excitement.

Sauvignon Blanc: be proud of it even those of you who do not produce it. It is the variety that sets us apart on the global stage. It has placed us firmly on the wine map of the world.

However it is critical that we learn from our success with Sau-vignon Blanc and use that to make a mark for other styles. We have come a long way with Pinot Noir with exports of $125 million, but there are other varieties we need to succeed with as well.

Sustainability is fundamental to our future because our mar-

kets expect it. Well over 95% of grape and wine production is now accredited. As a consequence we have the fundamentals in place so we can now start to tell our sus-tainability story in a credible and meaningful way.

These and other similar issues like the all important quality of our wines are very much under our control. However as growers and wineries we do not operate in a vacuum – we are impacted by the policies and decisions of others.

Government, of course, has a key role to play in our future.

And often government is very helpful. Whether it is New Zealand Trade & Enterprise with market-ing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade with market access, Ministry of Primary Industries with export certification or Min-istry of Business Innovation & Employment and Plant & Food with research, we benefit in many ways from a positive collaborative relationship with government agencies.

These have been challenging times for all growers and all winer-ies but I believe the New Zealand wine industry is very well placed for the future. That future, as always, will be what we – the people with capital invested - make it. ■

JMS 1/4 page press NZ Winegrower 60mm x 180mm


NZGGCUPDATE

R eturning profitability to the industry is the major issue facing the new President of the New

Zealand Grape Grower’s Coun-cil, (NZGGC). John Clarke of Gis-borne was elected unopposed to the position at the recent Romeo Bragato Conference.

Clarke who has been President of Gisborne Winegrowers says the growers in New Zealand have had a very tough few years. And not all of that has to do with the price being paid for fruit.

“This last year growers also faced reduced yields. We have had some weather pressures in regions and as a result of all those things, we have seen some people exit-ing from the industry, grapes have been pulled out in some regions and in others vineyards have been placed into receivership and sold.”

It’s not just the growers who have been hurt since the 2008 global financial crisis and the over supply of wine – Clarke says the wineries have also been hurt.

“Wineries small and medium sized are pretty much in the same position. It’s tough out there. So

I guess it’s all about trying to improve that position. There are some things we can’t control, such as the exchange rate. But we can have a positive influence on the way in which we market New Zealand wine as a product. And we can have some better control in the future of managing supply and demand.”

Lessons learned since 2008 may have been tough – but Clarke believes it has made the industry as a whole far more savvy.

“In the future we won’t neces-sarily be harvesting every single grape that is out there. And we will see the signs (of over supply) much sooner and manage yields. We don’t ever want to be running the risk of getting back into the position we found ourselves post 2008.”

He describes the boom of the New Zealand wine industry in the mid 2000s as a “lolly scramble.” Money was easy to get, banks were keen to lend and there were a number of people who entered the industry without having any idea of the sensitivity involved in grow-ing grapes. It was these issues that

led to the down-turn, fuelled by the GFC. But there is increased opti-mism throughout the industry now, on the back of increased sales and lower yields. What is needed n o w a r e s o m e stellar years where growers and win-eries can regroup. He is also hopeful that there will be investment in replanting older vineyards, particularly around regions like Gisborne.

“Vines don’t last forever, and there are a lot of vineyards around especially in my own region that are virused and have a bit of age on them – they need replanting. But obviously growers haven’t had the confidence or in fact the dol-lars to do that over the last three or four years. We are already start-ing to see that confidence emerge, with a major winery committing to a reinvestment programme in their own Gisborne vineyards. I take that as a positive sign and so

do many others.”It is many years since a Gis-

borne grower headed the Grape Growers Council, and Clarke says it is a positive aspect of his appointment.

“I guess there are other regions around New Zealand that would say Gisborne is pretty small in the scale of things. But we are the third largest region, if only by a nose and we have also been a major player in the development of the New Zealand industry in terms of R&D and personnel. Personally I think it’s good for a place like Gisborne to have a voice a bit higher up the chain.” ■

[email protected] Chch (03) 929 0451

NEW PRESIDENTT E S S A N I C H O L S O N

Stuart Smith hands over the mantle of President to John Clarke.


REGIONSHAWKE’S BAY

T he Bridge Pa Triangle Wine District has been launched to promote the Hawke’s Bay sub-region

as one of New Zealand’s premium winegrowing areas.

Extending over more than 2000 hectares on the western side of the Heretaunga Plains, the Bridge Pa Triangle encompasses Hawke’s Bay’s largest concentra-tion of vineyards.

The formation of the new wine district was spearheaded by local winegrowers Paul Ham (Alpha Domus Winery), Stephen Daysh (Bridge Pa Vineyard), Grant Edmonds (Sileni Estates), Steve Nathan (Salvare Estate) and Peter Cowley (Te Mata Estate).

It has ten winery members and seven grape growers.

Cowley, who has researched the special nature of the area for some time, explains: “The Bridge Pa Triangle Wine District

is located on old terraces of the Ngaruroro River, which up until 10,000 years ago flowed out to sea between Maraekakaho and Roys Hill.

“The river deposited vast amounts of greywacke gravel known locally as red metal, which is covered in different areas by alluvium derived from loess, vol-canic ash and greywacke.”

The resulting soil is ideal for vineyards, Cowley says, as it is well drained but has the water-holding capacity to establish a full grape-vine canopy using limited irriga-tion.

The average growing degree days over the last 16 vintages in the centre of the Bridge Pa Tri-angle has been measured as 1483 – the same as for Medoc in Bor-deaux and Coonawarra in South Australia.

“That this area is ideally suited to the production of quality wines

is proven by the awards won,” says Ham. “We excel at full-flavoured Syrah, Merlot, red blends, Char-donnay and Viognier. These wines are characterised by excellent varietal expression, depth of fla-vour, generosity and ample fruit sweetness.”

Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers’ executive officer Lyn Bevin says the launch of the wine district is a great development for Hawke’s

Bay and adds to the regional wine story.

“The Bridge Pa Triangle has long been a producer of award-winning wines and is home to many of the region’s well-known wineries. I look forward to work-ing with the new group as we con-tinue to promote our strengths and diversity in the international arena.” ■[email protected]

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POWERSAVINGS

O n most winemakers minds during winter is the high cost of electricity. Those unexpected and often dis-

proportionally large power bills that have you scrambling to turn things off that you really need.

This is generally the result of spikes in usage over short periods that occur during normal day to day operation and is difficult to avoid.

You are not using any more power than normal but you are paying a penalty for going over t h e t h r e s h o l d set by the supply company. It’s up to each winery to manage the maxi-mum demand at any one time or pay the penalty.

This has proven to be easier

said than done. Turning lights and heat pumps off reduces your load

but it’s not the answer. Turning your refrigera-tion off during the day works but when you need it you really do

need it. Managing it manually will make you paranoid about using power and dread the arrival of the

monthly power bill.The key is taking control of

your refrigeration so that you still have it available when you need it but it’s not using all your power allocation during the day when you need to do other things.

The problem with managing power usage manually is that by the time you know your load has gone too high it’s too late. It’s already happened and you are

MANAGING YOUR POWER SPIKES

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going to be paying for it the rest of the year.

You would have to micro man-age so that you stay well below which means when you are cold stabilizing, then you have to have everything else turned off.

The ultimate goal is to smooth out the peaks. That way you are able to use power in a sensible manner and not have to think about spikes.

In some wineries this is pretty easy but in others it’s more com-plicated. In some it’s only a matter of changing a few processes and using the tools you already have available to you. In others it’s about identifying the hardware that uses the power and the pro-cesses that are dependent on that hardware.

The root cause of the problem starts with refrigeration. It’s gen-erally our biggest power hog and most other processes are depend-ent on it in some way. When our wineries were built, power was relatively cheap. Most cooling systems were designed to meet our vintage requirements and not much consideration was given to the winter months, when refrig-eration load is generally small.

So we now have these big refrigeration packs that were rela-tively cheap to buy and install but

they come at a high cost to run. Big motors starting and running for short times under small demands equates to high power spikes. Add this to other motors starting at the same time and you increase that spike. If the water heater happens to be running when the chiller starts then we go higher. Happens to be a cold day and the office heat pump is running etc etc. You get a monthly reminder of the result for the remainder of the year.

Over the coming months we will endeavour to present to you a variety of solutions that are easily implemented and can potentially save you thousands of dollars.

David Gill is the managing direc-tor of Wine Technology Marlbor-ough. He has been involved in the wine industry in Marlborough since 1995. Before that he was managing projects for electrical contractors overseas.

Over the past seventeen years David has seen the challenges win-emakers face and how they have been let down by existing technol-ogy. Out of frustration he learnt to write software. The product is called VinWizard and is now sold in seven countries.

It was designed exclusively for the wine industry to meet winemakers needs and give them the tools to make better wine more economically. ■

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SOMMELIERS CORNER CAMERON DOUGLAS MS

T he TEXSOM Confer-ence was founded by two Master Sommeliers in 2005. Since its inception,

it has attracted more than 2,200 wine professionals from across the United States and the world. The speakers and judges con-stitute a “who’s who” list of top wine professionals, including Master Sommeliers, Certified Wine Educators, Masters of Wine and other highly respected wine people. It includes the largest contingent of Master Sommeliers at a public event worldwide.

The eighth instalment of TEXSOM was held in Dallas, Texas (naturally) in August. For the first time, New Zealand Wine was showcased - I was asked to present on what’s happening in our viticulture, wine making and wine styles, and to show off some fine local wine.

Thirty eight speakers pre-sented seminars on topics rang-ing from the wines of Niagara to the ‘terroir’ of Texas; an in-depth look at Rieslings from Eden Val-ley to the Wachau, Columbia Val-ley and Rheingau. Social Media Bootcamp was an important seminar and a red wine tasting from Leonetti Cellars (Walla Walla Valley) was a great way to review vintage conditions from 1985 to 2010. The ‘Grand Tasting’ event included wines from the USA, Italy, France and Canada.

One of my favourite seminars

and tastings was a workshop on The Kimmeridgian Chain – Loire Valley, Champagne and Chablis.

With Andrew McNamara MS, I delivered a one-hour seminar on New Zealand Wine – Trends for the Future. It was both a technical and personal presen-tation, and included a Google

Earth tour of New Zealand wine regions, followed by a general statistical overview of land and grapes, an overview of differ-ences between the last four vintages, interviews with wine makers and a tasting of eight New Zealand wines.

The selection process for the wines to be shown proved to be an unexpectedly time-con-suming undertaking – meeting the strict State requirements for getting wine into Texas is a huge challenge. Unless the wine was already available in Texas at retail or trade, had the correctly worded labelling, and a distributor willing to manage the transport of the wine, the Texas Wine Commission (TWC) would not allow the product to be served - heavy fines could be applied –and I was warned that the TWC would be present at the

conference and checking.I was determined to rise to

the challenge and present some exciting examples of what New Zealand winegrowers were producing – a number of wine companies worked very hard to assist me in getting their wine into Texas, though after months

of extensive negotiation, the list was narrowed to those suppli-ers who were already ‘on site’. In the middle of the frustrating process, I was almost ready to transport the wine surrepti-tiously in a suitcase.

Cracking the USA market carries some challenges – and cracking Texas can be a bit like landing the Mars Rover – it’s not impossible but takes a heck of a long time in planning and execution.

In the end I was able to bring together a collection of eight wines I was proud to show: Fel-ton Road Bannockburn Riesling ‘10, Greywacke ‘Wild’ Sauvignon Blanc ‘10, Prophets Rock Pinot Gris ‘09, Villa Maria Taylor’s Pass Chardonnay ‘09, Craggy Range Kidnappers Vineyard’ Chardonnay ‘10, Spy Valley Envoy Pinot Noir ‘10, Mills Reef

Merlot Malbec ’08 and Mission Estate Syrah ‘10.

The presentation was a sellout – it was great to see a Kiwi producer in attendance. Many attendees were excited to learn New Zealand was ‘more than Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir’ and particularly excited by the new treatments of Sauvignon – this provoked a lot of discus-sions post-presentation. Ques-tions were mainly around our soil as well as wine styles. There was a particular interest in our Syrah (the style has been lagging a little in the USA), and the Pinot Gris surprised many, and was highly praised.

With the aim of present-ing more New Zealand wine at TexSom and other Conferences in the USA (earlier in the year I presented a Seminar on Small Producer Pinot Noir at the Soci-ety of Wine Educators Confer-ence in San Mateo, California) I would be interested in speaking with producers who are keen to have their wine available to the trade.

Another great highlight from the conference was being a Judge for the Texas Best Sommelier Competition, with its exact-ingly high standards. I have long wished for New Zealand to have a Sommelier of the Year competition recognising our best in the hospitality sector tied to an annual Wine Event. Your thoughts would be welcome [email protected] ■

TEXSOM CONFERENCE 2012

“I have long wished for New Zealand to have a Sommelier of the Year competition recognising our best in the hospitality sector tied to an annual Wine Event.”

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Richard Smart Trophy and Reserve Champion WineRockburn Central Otago Pinot Noir 2010 – Chris James, Richard Bunton, Paul Halford

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Chardonnay 2011 - Brett Donaldson

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Brother Cyprian Trophy and Champion Pinot GrisGreystone Waipara Valley Pinot Gris 2011 – Bruce Thomas and Nick Gill

Champion Other White WineCoopers Creek SV Gisborne Albarino Bell-Ringer 2012 – Doug and Delwyn Bell

Mike Wolter Memorial Trophy and Champion Pinot NoirRockburn Central Otago Pinot Noir 2010 – Chris James, Richard Bunton, Paul Halford

Tom McDonald Memorial Trophy and Champion Classical Red WineMills Reef Elspeth Gimblett Gravels Cabernet Merlot 2010 – Paul McEvoy

Champion MerlotVilla Maria Reserve Hawkes Bay Merlot 2009 – Phil Holden

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TOPGUN

F or the first time in the seven year history of the Markham’s Young Vitiu-clturist competition, a

Wairarapa contestent has taken out the title.

Thirty-year-old Braden Crosby from Borthwick Estate in Carter-ton outscored the other finalists in five of the competition’s eight sections, held during this year’s Romeo Bragato Conference.

Delighted with his win, Crosby says it was his second year in the national finals and the last year he could have entered.

“I would be too old to enter again as the competition is for any-one 30 or under so for me that’s it. I don’t know if it’s a written rule but it seems like an unwritten rule that if you win it once that’s it, there’s nothing left to prove.”

Originally from Waiuku Crosby says no one in his family has ever been involved in the wine industry.

“When I left high school I

started a degree at Auckland University and also started working at my uncle’s restaurant at the same time. I didn’t enjoy the course I was doing so I gave it up and began working fulltime for my uncle. It was while I was w o r k i n g i n the restaurant that I started to develop a real interest in wine and t h o u g h t I want to know more about this.

“So I left and went to Marlborough where I did the Diploma in Viticulture in 2003 and did a bit of work in the wine industry down there before coming up to the Wairarapa on a field trip. I worked on several vine-

yards before ending up at Borth-wick Estate.”

A trip overseas saw him travel-ling to California where he worked in a winery. This was followed by a trip to Australia where he did a harvest in the Hunter Valley.

B a c k i n New Zealand he once again returned to Borthwick Estate for six months doing harvest and winery work during which time he met his future wife Gabrielle. More travel was to fol-low, includ-

ing trips to France, Canada and Mexico before returning to the Wairarapa.

“We got back here in 2008 and

I began my degree in Wine Science at EIT. We have been here ever since.”

Crosby also began working fulltime at Borthwick Estate that same year primarily in an assistant winemaking role. When the vine-yard manager left in 2009 he took over that role and admits has been learning ever since.

Today he is winemaker and viticulturist at the Estate and has only three papers of his degree to complete.

A s w i n n e r o f t h e 2 0 1 2 Markham’s Young Viticulturist of the Year Crosby has walked away with a cash prize, a travel grant supplied by the New Zealand Society of Viticulture and Oenol-ogy and a $3000 leadership week with New Zealand Winegrowers. He will now go on as the wine industry’s representative in the Young Horticulturist of the year competition in November. ■[email protected]

OUR TOP YOUNG VITICULTURISTB A R B A R A G I L L H A M

WINEGROWER ADVERT.indd 1 24/7/12 10:02:22 AM


SUBREGIONS

T he Waitaki Valley, running west to east and posi-tioned on the border of Canterbury and Otago, is

one of the newest and most prom-ising wine regions in New Zealand. Formerly orchards, sheep and deer farms, barely 10 years have passed since the first vines were planted in a trial block at Doctors Creek owned by the late entrepreneur Howard Paterson. A trial wine was made by John Forrest in 2003 and the first commercial wines hit the marketplace the following year.

The pioneering of the region was never a one-man-show. In those early days, before plant-ings actually began, there were

many interested parties. Grant Taylor and Alan Brady actually fielded a meeting from a bevy of Waitaki farmers back in 1993, who were seeking expertise and advice on the region’s viability for grape growing. Jim Jerram and his now brother-in-law Jeff Sinnott ended up scouting for vineyard sites while trout fishing up the Waitaki in the late ‘90s. Steve Har-rop moved to the rural community with his family early in the piece and was point man for Howard Paterson’s Waitaki Valley Estates property development company. Since that time, the region has attracted the gaze and admiration of some of the country’s highest

profile winegrowers, including John Forrest, Grant Taylor, Jeff Sinnott, Steve Smith MW and Michelle Richardson.

The Waitaki popped up on the radar of international wine writ-ers some six or seven years ago when the first commercial wines began emerging. It would seem that the mention of limestone caused many to quiver with excite-ment and grow weak at the knees, drawing immediate parallels with Burgundy. But the Waitaki is not Burgundy. It has the potential to become a great region in its own right, drawing on its geology as one of those attributes, though no more so than any other region. It

is true that tasting the wines, one could lend a thread of credence to the media hyperbole; the mention of minerality certainly a virtue the winemakers love to extoll.

But what is minerality? I had the opportunity to ask Waitaki winemakers Grant Taylor (Valli), Cleighten Cornelius (Pasquale), Jim Jerram (Ostler) and John Forrest (Forrest) for their take on minerality; an insidious ques-tion causing a degree of squirm-ing. There was almost unanimous agreement that minerality is – or is influenced by – acidity, one of the hallmarks of the cool climate region. Some spoke of taste allego-ries referencing river stones and

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chalk dusters, while others honed in on a more tactile sensation, in a textural and structural context. It’s a hard one to describe, and can generate great debate, though there does seem to be an inherent quality to the Waitaki wines that the term “minerality” goes some way to expressing.

State Highway 83 forms the main seam of the Waitaki Valley, with most of the vineyards planted to the south of the Waitaki River (in Otago) on alluvial terraces or limestone hills. The Hakataramea Valley to the north is technically part of Canterbury and there is just one 12ha vineyard planted in this sub-region (a vineyard “too cold even for the penguins” chuck-les Pasquale Viticulturist Renzo Mino). Back in Otago, the most eastern vineyards along SH83 are roughly 50km from Oamaru and Lake Waitaki forms the western boundary in the opposite direc-tion; a length of vineyard area spanning approximately 25km.

At this infantile stage of devel-opment – one could even say foetal – there is just 120ha of vines planted. The rapid planting and expansion has stopped altogether, the Waitaki – like the rest of New Zealand’s wine regions – not immune to the crippling effects of the recession and grape oversupply. However there are also larger forces at work here. The absentee owner-ship, geographic isolation, marginal climate and lack of continuity/unity have all contributed to the region’s struggle to gain promi-nence and pre-eminence in the marketplace. Perhaps part of the challenge is the desire from those involved for a rapid ascendency, when in actual fact so much has already been achieved in 10 short years.



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I remember visiting the region with a friend in 2007 as part of a wine road trip. Graphs and charts were thrust into our arms dem-onstrating the suitability of the region for grape growing, illus-trating the longer growing season (when compared to the closest neighbour, Central Otago) and higher rate of functional “ripening days” (those that don’t push into the 30s). However there is no kid-ding when it comes to the actual facts – the Waitaki is a harsh, cold, marginal climate. Renzo Mino of Pasquale says quite eloquently “The Waitaki isn’t on the edge, it’s off the edge, hanging on with its fingernails”.

Those fingernails, however, are like steel claws. The region does hang on, and you will find none who would argue that once

these young vines are established, the Waitaki has the great poten-tial to produce some of the most interesting and unique wines in New Zealand. “We used to think Gibbston was marginal, but if you do it right – if you farm the land appropriately – you can get the results”, says Grant Tay-lor. “All the vines in the Waitaki were planted at 5000vines/ha, which was a remarkable insight. The density lends itself to single bunching, then green thinning to generate crops of 4-5t/ha in a good year. The berries are much smaller than Central, so bunches are only averaging 60-70g.”

It’s a region predisposed to quality. Pinot Noir forms the backbone of the region’s wines, described (when compared to Central at least) as less powerful,

less dense, elegant, leaner, lighter in colour and lower in alcohol. “All positives” remarks Grant Taylor, “but when you haven’t done the work in the vineyard, you risk having thin, green Pinots”. Historically and geographically, it makes sense that Chardonnay would/will find a home in the Waitaki, and if the John Forrest Collection Chardonnay is anything to go by, the region is well on its way to achieving this. However the aromatics of the region are fast forging a reputation too, built on the piercing, pure linearity and acidity that tends to define the wines of the Waitaki. ■[email protected]


Cleighton Cornelius


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W hat follows are the four key elements of good establishment, writ-ten specifically for an

under-plant or replant situation:1. Spacing

The mature vines either side of a replant are aggressive colo-nisers of empty space, immature vines are not. The bigger the hole you dig, the less competition the replant will endure. With replants the hole should be 400mm in diameter and 400mm deep then refilled so the plant sits at the cor-rect depth after planting. 2. Water

Replants are very often required to rely on the existing irrigation system. This is invari-ably tuned to a mature production watering cycle but it’s woefully insufficient for young vines in their first season. Wherever pos-sible replants should have sup-plementary water by tanker. One supplementary watering per week (of 2 – 3 litres) for the first 6 to 8 weeks will give them a great start.

Young vines can grow signifi-cantly during the period from veraison to harvest. Tanker water again in this period for better cane lignification and better girth.

NB. Using mulch like compost or untreated sawdust will assist with retention of moisture. 3. Shelter

Reduce wind stress by using grow-guards. Remember that the young vine is fighting for moisture on two fronts:

• The neighbouring vines are sucking moisture out of its root zone.

• The wind sucks moisture from its leaves.4. Nutrition

Put nothing in the planting hole unless it is pure blood and bone. Never use any fertiliser with

raw manure (especially chicken manure) or salt based fertilisers in the planting hole. When growth has commenced give each vine 50g of NPK fertiliser like Nitrophos-lea blue to give them a boost – in dry regions this must be washed in with supplementary watering.

The take home message...

A vine that springs out of the starting blocks and then grows well in the first year will crop ear-lier and produce more and better quality fruit for the rest of its life compared to one that struggles. ■

GUIDE TO PLANTINGD O N N A P E C A R , M I S T Y VA L L E Y N U R S E R Y


BRAGATOVISITOR

V isiting Hawke’s Bay recently, Giovanni Mari-ani was the quintessential Italian in communicating

fervour for a new-found passion in life.

On his first trip to New Zea-land, he enthused that this coun-try has an energy that is not to be found in his homeland.

“It’s an urgent pulse that is expressed in the surroundings, the natural landscape and the people, of course.”

Giovanni teaches at Italy’s pre-mier viticultural training institu-tion, the famed Scuola Enologica di Conegliano in north-eastern Italy. His tour of this country’s wine regions celebrates the 10th anniversary of an exceptional partnership forged between his school and the Eastern Institute of Technology’s School of Viticulture and Wine Science.

The relationship is the brain-child of Kevyn Moore, a great

admirer of the legendary viticul-turist Romeo Bragato who, more than a century ago, recognised New Zealand’s potential for grow-ing grapes.

When Kevyn and wife Corrine first visited Conegliano and the school where Bragato was a stu-dent, the experience triggered Kevyn’s vision for an annually-awarded scholarship as the means of fostering a link between the Ital-ian school of oenology and New Zealand’s EIT.It provides a high-achieving EIT viticulture or wine science degree student a month in Italy, exploring wine regions and visiting the Conegliano school.

Similarly, a student from Con-egliano spends four weeks in New Zealand, learning about the wine regions, attending the Romeo Bragato Conference and visiting EIT’s School of Viticulture and Wine Science.

“For Italian sprouts,” as Gio-vanni dubs 18 and 19-year-old

Conegliano schol-arship winners, the scholarship is an opportunity to live for a month in a country where the wine industry is important and a well-developed business.

“For young New Zealanders, (in Italy) they find a wine industry that is highly developed and highly technological although there is great progress in that regard in this country. They are hosted by winemakers and agronomists who know their job and I hope once back home they have been able to make use of knowledge acquired in Italy to start a career.

“So both groups have a dif-ferent experience – everything is much more intense.”

Giovanni’s hope is that the partnership doesn’t become rou-tine.

“We are building a bridge now and it is a matter of widening the

lanes for more traffic on both sides. It’s about working out how to make that possible for visitors from both ends to find an authen-tic interest. That may mean longer periods of work for students who are interested.”

On a more serious note, Gio-vanni says that having tasted wines in both islands, he has found a local expression in varieties pro-duced in different parts of the country.

“They don’t lack for complex-ity – the whites in particular. When they are fresh, they are so intense. They really take me like a strong wind – I love being blown away by them. Some have a beauti-ful long finish. I love the level of acidity that keeps them alive.”■ [email protected]

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R ichard Flatman, 41 year old husband, father of three, viticulturist and Chair-man of Nelson Winegrowers; four descriptives that understate what he

does but reflect the essence of the man.First and foremost his decision to leave Two

Paddock and Central Otago in 2009 for Nelson was driven by his desire to spend more time with his young family in an area that has a lot more to offer family life. Flatman says; “Don’t get me wrong, Central Otago is a great place, but here we live on a beach in the small vibrant community of Mapua, close to schools and every other facility you can think of. And the job as viticulturist at the established Neudorf Vineyards means while I still work the typical hours of a viticulturist, as soon as I am at home I am five minutes from the water and play time with the kids”.

As the new chairman of Nelson Winegrow-ers he has already ruffled a few feathers but takes that on the chin and says he is determined to carry on the great work of former chairman Mike Brown. Many would ask if a viticulturist has the marketing skills to help drive a regional wine group but he says Nelson Winegrowers is about more than marketing. Although he is keen to ensure the Nelson winegrowing region becomes as recognisable as Hawke’s Bay, Martinborough, Marlborough and Cen-tral Otago. Flatman says even though Nelson has some of the best producers in the country and regularly performs outstandingly well in wine tastings and competitions, it seems to be

almost an afterthought when people list the wine growing regions of New Zealand.

“We need to change people’s perception of Nelson and we need to get the recognition from wine writers and wine lov-ers we deserve. We need to get more people here to taste the wines and increase the demand for Nelson wines.”

Slamming the quality point home, Flatman points to the 20% of all gold medals awarded at the recent Bragato competition that came to Nelson wineries, to Neudorf Vineyards world class Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Brightwater Vineyard’s six tro-phies in six years for both their Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc as well as their Winemaker of the Year and Best Wine in Show at this year’s Royal Easter Wine Show for their Chardonnay. The list goes on.

Flatman believes Nelson produces New Zealand’s finest aromatic style wines, wines that don’t just rely on fruit sweetness but on structure and refinement. He also beleives Nel-son produces the very best Chardonnays in the country, packed with complexity and flavour.

All of this has been achieved by fam-ily owned businesses. He sees this as a real strength because these businesses can make quick decisions, they don’t have corporate investors to answer to, and this in turn means

they have the flexibility to make exceptional wines, not just wines to keep the accountants happy.

Maybe that strength is also the region’s mar-keting weakness; without the corporate dollars to throw at marketing campaigns Nelson will always be on the back foot when it comes to promotion. Flatman says that is where Nel-son Winegrowers, through its Nelson WineArt brand, needs to carry on promoting the region and change the underlying perception as one that has the occasional success to one that is a leading wine region. ■[email protected]

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REGIONSGISBORNE

NATURAL WINEC H R I S T I N E B OYC E

M ore organic and vegan-friendly wines are appearing on super-market shelves around

the country following the recent release of the ethically-driven Natural Wine Company.

It is the first foray into super-markets for Geoff and Nicola Wright of Wrights Vineyard and Winery in Gisborne, who have been producing premium organic wine in relatively small quantities over the last decade.

Using grapes from their own vineyards and other key wine regions around the country, The

Natural Wine Company range includes Sauvignon Blanc and a Chardonnay Viognier blend, with Merlot to follow next vintage.

“Rather than just having the boutique wine label, we wanted to get more of our wines out to the public. Seeing more people drink-ing organic wines is the vision,” says Nicola Wright.

“We wanted to do it as naturally as we could – we apply natural farming techniques, organic viticulture and biodynamic methods. The vines are grown by working with nature; wild ferments are promoted and we

do not fine the wines.”The wines, they say, express

the variety and area from which the grapes are grown. Given their environmental focus, it seems only fitting that The Natural Wine Company has formed a partner-ship with Forest and Bird New Zealand to make a donation from every bottle sold.

“When we approached Forest and Bird they were very excited about the wine being natural – it’s a good marriage of two brands. Their motto is ‘give nature a voice’ and we’re all about making the best wine naturally.”

The bottle label features a footprint, serving as a reminder to tread gently on the earth and leave only footprints behind.

The Natural Company Wine is already rolling out into New World supermarkets around the coun-try, but Mrs Wright says they still have a lot of work to do. “There are challenges in getting into super-markets – it’s a different beast all together! While in a fine wine store it’s all about the taste, in the supermarket people want to save something. The key is hitting that magic $19.95 or under.”

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the brand recognition to a level so people reach for it at the super-markets, and, as a flow on effect, let more people know about the Wrights premium wines.

“Hopefully, New Zealanders will be willing to spend just a lit-tle bit more for ethically-made wine.” ■christinejboycegmailcom

FIRST ORGANIC BUBBLES

Geoff and Nicola Wright (pictured with two eldest sons Noah and Elijah) of Wrights Vineyard and Winery have diversified with their new label, The Natural Wine Company.

While they may be beginners in the supermarket game, Wrights Wines have already carved out their own niche as producers of the first certi-fied-organic, New Zealand-made Methode Tra-ditionelle.

Geoff and Nicola Wright started producing their ‘Entity’ Methode in 2001 but it wasn’t until 2010 they had their first organic-certified release. Bottle fermented and traditionally hand-riddled, the couple describe Entity as a “labour of love” which has become one of their flagship wines over the years.

“It’s a lovely clean, crisp, yeasty style – it’s a special occasion wine. Geoff just loves making champagne – he enjoys the chal-lenge, using the corks and knowing that it will be on people’s tables at Christmas time.”The Wrights have invested in specialized

equipment so they can put the corks in the bottles on site at their vineyard.

The Entity label features a painting of their terrace vineyard, by Gisborne artist Michael Burt.

Mrs Wright says they will add to their sparkling rep-ertoire with the soon-to-be released ‘Vintage,’ which, as the name suggests, a celebration of each vintage.

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REGIONSHAWKE’S BAY

WINERY FOR SALE

H aving closed its wine-mak-ing operation in Napier’s industrial area, Pernod Ricard New Zealand is

now offering the production facil-ity and site for sale.

At the end of a cul de sac in the heavy industry zone of Pandora, the winery sits on a 3.2ha site where building and plant infra-structure total several thousand square metres and include an on-site waste treatment facility. The land and plant capital is valued at $8.05 million.

The winery has capacity for

crushing and fermenting 10,000 tonnes of grapes and storage capacity for 8.3 million litres of wine. The property is being mar-keted by Bayleys. As part of the restructuring, Pernod Ricard may also sell some of its vineyards in Hawke’s Bay.

The company closed the Pan-dora plant in June – a move which affected 13 full-time staff. It has consolidated its Hawke’s Bay oper-ations at the higher profile Church Road site in Taradale.

Both wineries have undergone significant upgrades.

The Pandora plant was known as the Corbans winery when it was originally established in 1986. It changed ownership when Mon-tana acquired Corbans in 2000. A year later, Montana was bought out by Allied Domecq and in 2005, Pernod Ricard purchased Allied Domecq.

Straddling ownerships, the winery underwent an upgrade and expansion programme from the late 1990s through to the early 2000s.

In 2010, Pernod Ricard sold some of its Hawke’s Bay and Gis-

borne brands and assets to Indevin and its joint venture partner Lion Nathan New Zealand. Pernod Ricard managing director Fabian Partigliani said the plant had been “significantly under-utilised” since.

New Zealand’s largest win-emaker plans to invest new capi-tal into the nearby Church Road winery, which Partigliani said was considered a core strategic brand for the company. Founded in 1897, that winery underwent extensive renovations in 1989. ■[email protected]

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RESEARCHAWARD

DAVID JACKSON PRIZE

L incoln University’s Regina Billones is the latest recipi-ent of the David Jackson Prize for grape- and wine-

related research. Her research project which began back in 2008, has been to investigate the role of nurseries and the spread of bot-ryosphaeria disease in vineyards.

The David Jackson Prize pro-vided $1500 which allowed Regina to attend the 8th International Workshop on Trunk Diseases held in Spain earlier this year. She talked to NZWinegrower.

What were your findings during the

original research?It demonstrated that young

grafted plants from grapevine nurseries have latent infections of botryosphaeria disease, which are present in the bark of grapevines. These invisible, latent infections undoubtedly contribute to the high incidence of infections in the vineyards, threat-ening the long-term sustainability of the grapevine industry.

What were some of the challenges/obstacles in

your research?Some nursery owners were

hesitant to participate in our ini-tial survey as they were concerned

about confidentiality of results and the effect this might have on the marketability of their grafted plants.

Due to the 2008 recession in wine, most nurseries stopped or reduced their produc-

tion of grafted vines, thus, in the second year of sampling we were only able to collect samples dur-ing a very short period within the season.

What are the benefits for the New Zealand wine industry?

My research has greatly improved global understanding of the biology of Botryosphaeria disease in grapevines, which is essential for development of targeted disease management methods.

Since the disease cannot be eliminated from within young vines and is hard to control once it has established in vineyards, preventing infection in the nurs-ery provides the best chance for resolving this disease problem in vineyards. ■

Regina Billones

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BOB’S BLOG BOB CAMPBELL MW

T he show is judged in Syd-ney. An evening at iconic Tetsuya’s restaurant ices the cake (we also went

to The Spice Temple – highly recommended).

In the ten year history of the Five Nations (called Tri-Nations and featuring NZ, Australia and South Africa only for the first eight years) Australia has won eight times and NZ twice. This year it was yet another win to Australia while we came second.

Here are a few comments on some of the more interesting classes:

Sparkling wine was a clean sweep by South Africa, winning trophy for top wine and the class. Australia was a distant second with us close behind. Top NZ wine was Nautilus Brut NV (Late disgorged after three years).

We triumphed in the Aro-matic White class winning the class and trophy for top wine. The top two Kiwi wines were Framingham Select Riesling 2010 (top) and 2011. Winemaker Andrew Hedley deserves to be recognised as a truly great Ries-ling maker.

Chardonnay was won by Aus-tralia (Xanadu Reserve 2010). Top Kiwi wine was Sacred Hill 2010 Rifleman’s.

Sauvignon Blanc would seem to be at least one class that New Zealand should confidently win.

We didn’t. Australia narrowly beat us although we did win the trophy for top wine which was Matua Single Vineyard Wairau 2010. If Australia’s stirling perfo-mance puzzles you, as it did me, try Bay of Fires 2010 Sauvignon Blanc from Tasmania – it is very, very good.

NZ won the Rosé class although Australia earned the trophy for top wine with an excellent Pinot Noir Rosé by Domain Chandon.

We had a predictable win in Pinot Noir – winning the class and top wine which was Akarua 2010 followed closely by

Doctor’s Flat 2010, both from Central Otago.

The Merlot or Carmenere class appears to be a banker for Chile, after all Carmenere is that country’s signature grape. How-ever the class and trophy were both won (comfortably) by New Zealand. Top wine was Mills Reef 2010 Elspeth Merlot.

Bordeaux blends was a clean sweep to Argentina despite a contingent of heavyweight Kiwi contenders.

“Other reds” was never going to favour New Zealand although Villa Maria 2007 Grenache was runner-up wine. We once

revealed the grape varieties in this class although we no longer do that. I recall a spirited defence by the South African judge for a Pinotage that was eventually voted runner-up. It turned out to be Muddy Water from Waipara.

New Zealand has a long his-tory of success in the Syrah class but we were narrowly beaten for line honours by Chile. Top Kiwi Syrah was Villa Maria Reserve 2010 followed by Passage Rock Reserve 2010 and Bilancia La Collina 2010.

In past years it has been a two-horse race with South Africa

FIVE NATIONS WINE COMPETITIONThis is my favourite wine competition of all time. It features the very best wines from NZ, Australia, South Africa, Argentina and Chile. A judge/selector from each country chooses 110 wines strategically spread over up to 16 classes to give their country the best chance of an overall wine (at least that’s what I do).

(from left to right); Bob Campbell, Michael Fridjhon (South Africa), Fabricio Portelli (Argentina), Judith Kennedy (organiser), Huon Hooke (Australia) and Eduardo Brethauer (Chile).


bringing up the rear. Recently however the quality of South African wines has soared. Is it because they are increasingly adopting screwcaps – their white wines certainly seem fresher and fruitier. Chile and Argentina are both stronger than I had imagined. I thought their Achil-les heel might be a narrow band of wine styles but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. New Zealand has no cause to be complacent.

Cool Reds from the city of sails

A group of winemakers from the Auckland isthmus banded together to offer a top flight tast-ing of blended red wines from the outstanding 2010 vintage. They included three highly rated Bordeaux reds from the excel-lent 2009 vintage.

Their point? To raise aware-ness for unique and distinctive Auckland terroir and its ability to produce world class wines.

Vineyards from Clevedon in the south, Waiheke in the east and Matakana in the north share a long, temperate growing season, clay soils and often hill-side sites. Most vines are grown without irrigation.

The wines were presented in

three flights.Seven Merlot-dominant

wines, including Vieux Cha-teau Certan were tasted before the audience voted for their favourite wine. Puriri Hills Pope from Clevedon was way out in front with more than three times the vote of Cliff Edge, a Merlot Cabernet Franc blend from a one-hectare vineyard on the Awhiti Peninsula overlook-ing the Manukau Harbour. The Bordeaux closely followed Cliff Edge.

The second flight was Cabernet Franc dominant wines including the Pomerol, La Conseillante. Top Wine was The Mesenger from Stillwater followed by Man O’War “Iron-clad” from Waiheke Island and Coxhead Creek “Reserve” from Matakana. La Conseillante was in fourth place.

Chateau Lascombe was the clear winner in the Cabernet Sauvignon dominant class with Obsidean, Waiheke Island and Brick Bay “Pharos” from Mata-kana in second equal place while Waiheke’s Goldie was close behind.

Point well made. The Auck-land wines were distinctively different from the punchier, fruitier and more generously

proportioned wines that we now expect from Hawke’s Bay. The best showed restraint, purity and appealing floral and spice nuances together with great textures (to me, one of the key differences). They are sophis-ticated wines from dedicated artisan producers that can too easily slip under the radar.

Terra Sancta on Terra Firma

When a couple of samples from the brand new Central Otago producer, Terra Sancta, arrived on my doorstep I was intrigued by a label design that is more radical than any I’ve seen in decades. It has an heroic, Victorian design that’s dripping with gilt frames, bunches of grapes and miniature portraits. I love it for its uniqueness and romanticism. It’s the most eye-catching label I’ve ever encoun-tered.

The samples were followed by a visit from brand owner, Mark Weldon. He’s an Olympic medallist who headed the NZX before cashing up and, with his equally talented wife, lawyer Sarah Eliott, bought Olsenn’s in Bannockburn.

Mark is a romantic soul with a fascination for ancient maps

which is where he got the name Terra Sancta (he’s just produced the vineyard map to end all vineyard maps). But he’s also a very down to earth, hard-nosed businessman. He wanted to buy a land-based business, looked at a lime orchard but finally chose vineyards instead, admitting that wine has an emotional overlay. “I’m not in it to make a lot of money” he said, then after a short pause, “but I don’t want to lose money either.” ■

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WINEMAKERVIEW

McTAVISH’S TAKE

D uncan McTavish cele-brates his fourth anniver-sary at Man O’ War this year, the far flung winery

on the remote, least populated, north eastern end of Waiheke Island. Renowned for its red wines, Waiheke is also emerging as a white wine producer of some class.

“There’s a misconception about Waiheke being hot, red wine country but we believe we can make great fresh whites here. That said, the cost of the land and

the labour inputs pretty much requires a good return for a bot-tle of wine.

“The price we can command for a bottle of Waiheke Sauvignon compared to a bottle of Bordeaux-blended reds is challenging. For our size and scale, we’re obliged to go to export markets,” says McTavish, whose previous win-emaking tenure was a four-year, formative stint at Pegasus Bay Wines in Waipara, North Canter-bury.

Man O’ War is owned by the

Spencer family, which owns about a sixth of the island spread over approximately 2000 hectares, comprising 76 individual experi-mental vineyards.

The Spencers own another, even more remote, 1500 acres at the northern end of the nearby Ponui Island. Of this land, just six hectares are planted in vines. This small island has a permanent population of eight people, two of whom look after the vineyards; another two who look after the sheep and cattle, with two other

couples and roving herds of wild miniature donkeys also in resi-dence. There’s no power on the island. It is entirely solar, wind power or generator-derived. Grapes are freighted back on a slow barge each year, bringing new meaning to the word ‘harvest’.

With such a vast range of vine-yards and microclimates, McTav-ish is somewhat spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting grapes, but most of the sites obviously lend themselves to certain styles of wine, he says. Experienced

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Waiheke viticulturist Matt Allen helps McTavish to pinpoint the grapes best suited to each wine style.

“Our Ponui Pinot Gris is a modern New Zealand style,” he say. Made from extremely ripe St Helena clone Pinot Gris grapes, all coming from Ponui.

Relatively oxidative handling of the juice was one of the keys to unlocking flavour in this Pinot Gris, he says, as it was in the 2010 Man O’War Valhalla Chardon-nay. ‘Controlled neglect’ is how McTavish describes part of his approach to winemaking.

He describes this Chardonnay as “a combination of alcohol and really low pH, which inhibits malo-lactic fermentation. He favours warm to hot, fast ferments – “The Chardonnay is made in 10 days; 4

sitting around going brown, 6 fer-menting and cleaning itself back up before sitting in barrel for 10 months.

“We don’t do any fining of the juice or of the wine so they’re quite tannic to begin.”

The Man O’War 2012 The Gravestone Sauvignon Semillon is the second vintage of this blend of 70% Sauvignon Blanc with 30% Semillon (the Semillon treated to old oak). He’s pleased with the results of these wines but when it comes to Tulia, the bubbly, he plans to make a less pronounced varietal with bubbles – “The most important thing for New Zealand bubbles is to retain as much acid-ity as possible and not aging too long in secondary fermentation. I’m looking forward to moving Tulia into a more subtle style.” ■

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Noir 2013. Over four days those attending will be treated to the subtley and quality of New Zea-land Pinot. First established in 2001, the producers of New Zea-land have a lot to thank the man who helped establish the event - Richard Riddiford of Palliser Estate.

Riddiford’s involvement with the Pinot Conference began after Larry McKenna raised the idea of

a New Zealand celebration. It was decided to hold a conference in Wellington and McKenna asked Riddiford to chair the board.

While these days it is acknowl-edged as one of New Zealand Wine’s finest events, Riddiford said it was a difficult task and a challenge to encourage people to attend.

“When we did the first one we were flying blind. It was a bit like having the first Toast Martinbor-ough, I had to beg a lot of people to come because it had no track record.

“I was very keen to make it profitable because there is no need to have something if it is not profitable and we were lucky in the economic climate at the time which was a hell of a lot better than it is now. So sponsorship, dare I say it, was reasonably easy to get.

“The aims of the first confer-ence were pretty specific. If you’re going to play on the international stage you need to compare your product with what’s out there in the market place both at a taste level and a value level. It’s a strange industry; we spend an enormous

amount of money and time tasting other people’s products.”

Richard acknowledges one of the challenges to the industry now is that consumers have discovered they can buy very drinkable wine for $15-$20 a bottle.

“The question now is will those consumers ever go back to $60 bottles of wine? People do have to eat but they don’t have to drink. We are in an industry where we compete for the leisure dollar and that may be going to a sport-ing event or going to the opera, eating out or buying wine. That

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“Pinot is a hard grape to grow it’s been called a ‘minx of a grape’. It’s taken off here on a tiny scale but you’ve got to remember the New Zealand industry is tiny so we’ve got a whole lot of outside influences that we can’t control.”

sector has got very cluttered and very competitive.”

Riddiford’s own company Pal-liser Estate currently exports 70 percent of its wine. While a wide range of varieties are produced, its fair to say Pinot Noir is a mainstay.

“Pinot is a hard grape to grow it’s been called a ‘minx of a grape’. It’s taken off here on a tiny scale but you’ve got to remember the New Zealand industry is tiny so we’ve got a whole lot of outside influences that we can’t control. We can’t control exchange rates; we can’t control what is produced in Australia or Europe which is subsidised enormously. If the industry there did what Muldoon did to our famers, about 30 per-cent of those French European vineyards would disappear. They are supported to grow grapes

which really are unprofitable. So those things contribute.

“ W h a t ’ s h a p p e n i n g domestically is there are still wineries going bankrupt and the difficulty with that is that

distressed stock is dumped onto the local market and the banks don’t care at what price. So you’ve got that continuing downward

pressure and that environment is unfortunately continuing. I mean you’ve got it well documented that America’s got a significant financial crisis, Europe’s got a dreadful one and you’ve got a

country like Spain that’s got 25 percent unemployment. You can’t operate like that so I don’t profess to be hugely confident about the

coming year.“We live in a very dynamic

world. You can have a strategy to improve your exports to Asia by 30 percent and you wake up one morning and there’s a SAR’s outbreak or Birdflu and they don’t buy anything for several months. After 9/11 in New York, expensive bottles of wine simply didn’t sell. So you’ve got all these things happening and you have no control over them. That’s why you have to learn to just control the things you can and operate in the environment that’s been created, because you can’t do anything about it.

“You can waste a lot of time fretting about things you can’t change. Its unfortunate but that’s the way it is.” ■[email protected]


OBITUARYDON WALKER

SERVICE TO NZ AND OUR WINET he recent death in Wellington of Don-

ald James (Don) Walker, 75, recalls the significant role he played in helping New Zealand wine come to promi-

nence, first in New Zealand, and later in Britain.A senior officer in the Department of Trade

and Industry, Don was a major force in the sponsorship and organisation by that depart-ment of the annual New Zealand Wine Exhi-bition, in association with the Tourist Hotel Corporation.

I first met him at the 1975 awards dinner staged by the department at Chateau Ton-

gariro. My next meeting with Don was again at The Chateau in 1981, when he was home on leave from his post in London as New Zealand’s Senior Trade Commissioner and Minister (Commercial). Cooks Wines, had invited Don as their guest and during a lull in the festivities there occurred a conversation which went something like this:

Conversation at Chateau Tongariro

Walker: “I say, Terry, some of these wines are really good. I’d love to be able to present

T E R R Y D U N L E AV Y

Don Walker


a selection of the top ones to wine people in London.”

Dunleavy: “No problem in arranging the wines, only the cost and hassle of getting them there.”

Walker: “I’m sure we can persuade the Air Force to find a little space on one of their Her-cules flights to Britain. The Minister Commer-cial in London is one of those with authority to request space for such purposes.”

Dunleavy: “You’re on! What else do we need?”

Walker: “It would be nice if we could serve a little lunch, perhaps in the Penthouse, to go with the wines. That way we might attract the right people; trade, writers and the like.”

Dunleavy: “Good, when do we do it?”Walker: “February would be a good time,

around our New Zealand Day observance; and that would give you time to get the top competi-tion wines across.”

And that’s how we started in 1982 what is now the annual tasting of wines in the Pent-

house of New Zealand House (now held in the Nursery Pavilion at Lords Cricket Ground). Without the keen interest and initiative of Don Walker and the free freight service from the RNZAF we would never have got started. Suddenly, we were on our way.

Setting up in LondonLater that year in June, I was in London

for the first time, and Don organised for us to present another tasting in the Penthouse which was well attended by top wine writers and trade people. That function commenced a relationship between the Wine Institute and the trade section of New Zealand House which continues to this day.

By 1989, I was able to convince the regu-lar exporters to UK that our efforts would be enhanced by an active and identifiable London-based group, which led to the formation of an advisory committee of agents and representa-tives, with Don Walker as its chair. In turn, this led to the establishment in 1991 of the New

Zealand Wine Guild. In all, Don spent 25 years abroad in New

Zealand’s trade and diplomatic service, includ-ing three postings to London, 1961-64, 1980-84, and 1989-94. He was a natural and dedicated salesman for New Zealand and all that we could offer the world. Nothing more so than our wines.

The speed with which our wines became accepted by the British from 1982 onward owed much to Don’s personal relationships with the movers and shakers of the London wine trade, and his keen eye for every possible promotional opportunity.

Along with the late John Avery MW, Mar-garet Harvey MW, Richard Goodman, Cook’s and later Montana’s livewire London-based representative,

Don Walker and his Trade Commissioner colleague Joe Turnbull formed the small band of heroes who laid the foundations in London in the 1980’s for what has now become our bil-lion dollar wine export success. ■


MARKETINGCHANGES

INCLUSIVE MARKETING

G eneric fees are gone, the largest ever partnership with Government has begun, and a separate

business unit has been estab-lished. These are just some of the major changes to the New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) Marketing plan.

Established on the back of the Strategic Review of NZW, the mar-keting plan will focus on develop-ing markets in Asia, North America and Northern Europe. The Europe office will focus on the Mainland European market, Australia will focus on events and a new office in Hong Kong is about to be opened.

Global Marketing Director Chris Yorke says the changes don’t mean NZW is ignoring our two biggest markets of Australia and the UK.

“There is still opportunity to grow in those markets, but the question is, what can NZW do? In marketing we can help estab-lish the category, we can educate people about New Zealand and develop the New Zealand wine brand. In terms of the UK market and Australia, there is already a very good level of understand-ing of that and a lot of wineries are actively exporting there. So it makes sense, that if we have limited resources, to focus on the next areas of growth, which will be Asia, North America and Mainland Europe.”

In the past, wineries paying generic fees had access to a range of activities and information relat-ing to the markets they were inter-ested in. The problem was only a

third of the money that funded those areas came from generic fees themselves, the rest came from levies.

“So in fact the levy was subsi-dising those people who paid the generic fees,” Yorke says. “That’s why the generic fees have been abolished.”

Now all the information gathered by the marketing team – which includes a vast range of market reports from the likes of Nielsen and Euromonitor, is available to every one of the 700 wineries.

“That is a major opportunity for our wineries.”

It doesn’t mean that NZW won’t be involved in organising events for wineries to take part in. But what will change, is the events will all be user pays and will be run by a new and separate business unit, the global events team.

“Under the new structure we have NZW marketing, funded by levies. We set the overall strategy for marketing around the world. The events team will arrange the events as part of that strategy and bill the wineries separately for attending. This will ensure absolute transparency of where the levy is being spent.

“NZW marketing’s role is to develop the brand, strengthen the relations with key influenc-ers, share market information and arrange seminars/masterclasses and trade and media visits to New Zealand. All of those things are beneficial to every winery. Then if you want to pay a bit extra to take part in an event, that is separate

T E S S A N I C H O L S O N


INCLUSIVE MARKETING

Chris Yorke

and organised by the events team.”Recently the Government

announced a $1.5 million boost for the wine industry as part of a multi-year programme. Yorke says the partnership between NZTE and NZW is the largest joint pro-ject undertaken. It will provide that extra funding required to develop new markets. In Europe a major campaign is about to begin in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The funding will also help establish the New Zealand wine brand in China.

So given the changes, what now for wineries? Yorke says it is vital

that every winery registers which export markets they are interested in, to ensure the relevant infor-mation is going out to them. That can be done on the nzwine.com portal. There is also more space available for each winery within the home page, to add informa-tion. That needs to be updated and sustainability stories can be added. [email protected] can help here. Plus Yorke says if you are travelling to promote your wine, let the marketing team know in advance, so they can pass on any relevant information that you may require. It’s as easy

a s e m a i l i n g : [email protected] or [email protected] ■

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IWCRECOGNITION

I n front of 800 guests at the International Wine Chal-lenge Awards Dinner in Lon-don last month, Dr Richard

Smart was granted the IWC Life-time Achievement Award for his contribution to viticulture.

In his citation for the award, Charles Metcalfe said “He has four degrees including a PhD and a Doctor of Agricultural Science, but he is very far from an ivory-tower academic… he is a practical man at heart, happiest out in a vineyard.

In fact, it could well be our win-ner who coined the phrase, ‘wine is made in the vineyard’ before it was the ubiquitous maxim it is today. He is still working as a viticultural consultant, and is always ready with a controversial opinion (the nonsense of biody-namic viticulture, for instance). And for what he has achieved in a lifetime’s work among vines, and the improvements in viticulture he has championed, we are proud to name him the 2012 winner of

the IWC Lifetime Achieve-ment Award.”

In accepting the award, Dr Smart said he was grate-ful for the recogni-tion of the role of viticulture, and viticulturists, in wine production.

The largest wine competi-tion in the world, the International Wine Challenge is about to celebrate its 30th year.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was last year given to Sir George Fistonich. ■

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CALENDAR

OCTOBER11Wineworks Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc Yacht Race 2012Celebrating the new release Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2012

15 – 17The Marlborough Wine Show judgingBlenheim

23Final day for Judging samples for Air New Zealand Wine Awards in both Wellington and Auckland

NOVEMBER

10Marlborough Wine Show Dinner and presentation of trophies - The Marlborough Convention Centre. Details at www.marlboroughwineshow.co.nz

5-7 Air New Zealand Wine Awards JudgingAuckland

24Air New Zealand Wine Awards tasting at Westpac StadiumWellington

24Air New Zealand Wine Awards Dinner TSB Arena, Wellington

JANUARY 28 - 31Pinot Noir 2013Wellington

FEBRUARY2Nelson International Aromatic SymposiumDetails http://aromatics2013.wineart.co.nz/registration

7 – 10Seresin’s Waterfall Bay Wine and Food FestivalMarlborough. Details [email protected]

9Marlborough Wine and Food Festival – Brancott Estate, Marlborough. Guest performances by Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra and Avalanche City.

WHERE EVENT ATTENDANCEW=WineryA=Agent NZW=NZ Winegrowers

AUDIENCEM=Media T=Trade C=Consumer

EVENT DATE2012

UK The Three Wine Men Consumer Fair (Cardiff) NZW C 6 – 7 Oct

UK London New Release Trade Tasting NZW T M 24 Oct

UK The Wine Gang Consumer Fair (London) NZW C 3 Nov

UK The Wine Gang Consumer Fair (Edinburgh) NZW C 10 Nov

UK The Wine Gang Consumer Fair (Bath) NZW C 24 Nov

UK The Three Wine Men Consumer Fair (Manchester) NZW C 1-2 Dec

UK The Three Wine Men Consumer Fair (London) NZW C 8-9 Dec

Sweden New World Wine Day – Stockholm NZW C TBC Jan

Ireland Dublin Annual Trade & Consumer Tasting W, A, NZW T,M,C 7 Feb 2013

UK London Annual Trade & Consumer Tasting W, A, NZW T,M,C 13 Feb 2013

Japan NZ Wine Fair For Japan (Tokyo) W, A, NZW T,M,C 19 Feb 2013

Japan New Zealand Wine Fair (Osaka) W,A,NZW T,M,C 21 Feb 20132029-08 layout_global_P 9/23/08 9:32 AM Page 1

Composite

C M Y CM MY CY CMY K


SUMMARY OF KEY INDICATORS PRINCIPAL EXPORT MARKETS

MAJOR VARIETIES IN MAJOR AREAS

*(npr = not previously recorded separately)*n.c. = no change

*estimate of probable total scaled up from actual returns

MAJOR NZ VINEYARD AREAS

Region 2010 2012 % Change % Total (Actual) (Forecast) (from 2010) Area (2010)

Marlborough 19295 19570 +1.4% 57.7%

Hawkes Bay 4947 5046 +2.0% 14.8%

Gisborne 2083 2003 -3.9% 6.2%

Otago 1540 1543 +0.2% 4.6%

Canty/Waipara 1779 1828 +2.7% 5.3%

Wairarapa/Wgtn 871 885 +1.6% 2.6%

Nelson 842 880 +4.6% 2.5%

Auckland 550 573 +4.1% 1.6%

Waikato/BoP 147 147 n.c.* 0.4%

National total 33428 33600 +0.5% 100.0%

Following is a summary of key indicators at intervals:

1985 1990 1995 2000 2010

No. of Growers n/a n/a n/a n/a 1128

No. of Wineries n/a n/a 204 358 672

Producing area (Ha)* 5,900 4,880 6,110 10,197 33,428

Average yield (t/Ha) 13.2 14.4 12.2 7.8 8.0

Tonnes crushed 78,000 70,265 74,500 80,100 266,000

Total production (m.L) 59.6 54.4 56.4 60.2 190.0

Domestic sales (m.L) 42.6 39.2 30.9 41.3 56.7

Per capita consumption:

(litres NZ wines) 13.1 11.7 8.7 10.6 13.0

Export volume (m.L) 0.8 4.0 7.8 19.2 142

Exp. value (m.$NZ fob) 3.0 18.4 40.8 168.4 1041.0

Variety 2010 2012 % Change % Total (Actual) (Forecast) (from 2009) Area (2011)

Sauv. Blanc 16910 17297 +2.2% 44.3%

Chardonnay 3865 3792 -1.9% 11.3%

Pinot Gris 1763 1764 n.c.* 4.3%

Riesling 986 1009 +2.3% 2.7%

Gewurztraminer 314 290 -7.7% 0.9%

Semillon 185 182 -2.7% 0.5%

Pinot Noir 4773 4828 +1.1% 13.9%

Merlot 371 1403 +2.3% 4.0%

Cab.Sauvignon 519 521 +0.4% 1.5%

Syrah 297 300 +1.0% 0.8%

Cabernet Franc 161 162 n.c.*% 0.5%

Malbec 157 161 +2.5% 0.5%

Total 33428 33600 +0.5%

New Zealand’s total producing vineyard will increase by only 0.5% over

the next 2 years. This table shows the variation for major varieties (in

Ha), with % change and percentage of total in 2012.

Country/Years Litres(m) +/- % Total NZ +/- % Ave

+/- %

fob (m) $NZ/L

AUSTRALIA:

2011 47.038 +6.0 329.115 +1 $7.00 -4.6

2010 44.389 325.750 $7.34

UNITED KINGDOM:

2011 52.305 +24.8 296.686 +3.9 $5.68 -15.1

2010 42.708 285.630 $6.69

USA:

2010 32.623 +34.5 234.674 +7.1 $7.19 -10.0

2010 24.250 219036 $9.49

CANADA:

2011 7.708 +27.2 62.547 +9.8 $8.11 -13.7

2010 6.060 56.941 $9.40

NETHERLANDS:

2011 3.216 +27.1 23.359 +8.4 $7.26 -14.7

2010 2.530 21.522 $8.51

IRELAND:

2011 2.184 +49.1 17.724 +18.9 $8.12 -20.2

2010 1.465 14.901 $10.17

CHINA:

2011 1.561 +21.4 18.754 +38.0% $10.57 -12.1

2010 1.286 13.591 $12.02

HONG KONG:

2011 1.113 -7.6 14.623 -7.8 $13.14 n.c.

2010 1.204 15.850 $13.15

SINGAPORE:

2011 1.200 -23.4 14.028 -30.8 $11.69 -9.6

2010 1.567 20.258 $12.93

DENMARK:

2011 1.079 +3.5 6.451 +11.6 $5.98 +7.9

2010 1.042 5.778 $5.54

JAPAN:

2011 0.848 +51.4 10.815 +33.9 $12.75 -11.5

2010 0.560 8.076 $14.41

GERMANY:

2011 0.678 +37.2 5.052 +14.4 $7.45 -16.8

2010 0.494 4.416 $8.95

FINLAND:

2011 0.289 *npr 2.673 npr $9.24 npr

npr npr npr npr

NORWAY:

2011 0.138 npr 1.118 npr $8.12 npr

npr npr npr npr

SWEDEN:

2011 1.607 npr 14.080 npr $8.76 npr

npr npr npr npr

OTHER:

2011 3.352 npr 34.111 npr $10.17 npr

npr npr npr npr

TOTAL EXPORTS:

2011 156.667 +20.4 1,080.951 +6.0 $6.90 -12.0

2010 130.130 1,019.808 $7.84

Average $ per litre down again!While total annual exports of New Zealand wine for the 12 months to 31

January 2011 have stayed fairly static since passing the $1 billion over a

year ago, the average $ per litre has dropped again, by by an alarming

94c. Compared with Jan 2010, annual exports increased 20% in volume,

value increased only 6%, due to significantly higher bulk exports. In

volume and value, Australia retained the lead over UK, with average per

litre price to Aussie at $7.00 against UK’s low of $5.68.

72 // NZ WINEGROWER AUG/SEP 2011

STATISTICS

SUMMARY OF KEY INDICATORS PRINCIPAL EXPORT MARKETS

MAJOR VARIETIES IN MAJOR AREAS

*estimate of probable total scaled up from actual returns

MAJOR NZ VINEYARD AREAS

Region 2010 2012 % Change % Total (Actual) (Forecast) (from 2010) Area (2010)

Marlborough 19295 19570 +1.4% 57.7%

Hawkes Bay 4947 5046 +2.0% 14.8%

Gisborne 2083 2003 -3.9% 6.2%

Otago 1540 1543 +0.2% 4.6%

Canty/Waipara 1779 1828 +2.7% 5.3%

Wairarapa/Wgtn 871 885 +1.6% 2.6%

Nelson 842 880 +4.6% 2.5%

Auckland 550 573 +4.1% 1.6%

Waikato/BoP 147 147 n.c.* 0.4%

National total 33428 33600 +0.5% 100.0%

Variety 2010 2012 % Change % Total (Actual) (Forecast) (from 2009) Area (2011)

Sauv. Blanc 16910 17297 +2.2% 44.3%

Chardonnay 3865 3792 -1.9% 11.3%

Pinot Gris 1763 1764 n.c.* 4.3%

Riesling 986 1009 +2.3% 2.7%

Gewurztraminer 314 290 -7.7% 0.9%

Semillon 185 182 -2.7% 0.5%

Pinot Noir 4773 4828 +1.1% 13.9%

Merlot 371 1403 +2.3% 4.0%

Cab.Sauvignon 519 521 +0.4% 1.5%

Syrah 297 300 +1.0% 0.8%

Cabernet Franc 161 162 n.c.*% 0.5%

Malbec 157 161 +2.5% 0.5%

Total 33428 33600 +0.5%

New Zealand’s total producing vineyard will increase by only 0.5% over

the next 2 years. This table shows the variation for major varieties (in

Ha), with % change and percentage of total in 2012.

*n.c. = no change

*(npr = not previously recorded separately)

Following is a summary of key indicators at intervals:

1985 1990 1995 2000 2010

No. of Growers n/a n/a n/a n/a 1128

No. of Wineries n/a n/a 204 358 672

Producing area (Ha)* 5,900 4,880 6,110 10,197 33,428

Average yield (t/Ha) 13.2 14.4 12.2 7.8 8.0

Tonnes crushed 78,000 70,265 74,500 80,100 266,000

Total production (m.L) 59.6 54.4 56.4 60.2 190.0

Domestic sales (m.L) 42.6 39.2 30.9 41.3 56.7

Per capita consumption:

(litres NZ wines) 13.1 11.7 8.7 10.6 13.0

Export volume (m.L) 0.8 4.0 7.8 19.2 142

Exp. value (m.$NZ fob) 3.0 18.4 40.8 168.4 1041.0

Exports up againExports for the 12 months to end of June 2012 (Moving Annual Total)

Country Litres $ Fob Average Average (m) $/L 2012 $/L 2011

United Kingdom 571,130 250,679 5.45

USA 33,067 231,744 6.48 7.01

Australia 47,158 345,391 7.25 7.32

Canada 5658 58,976 10.87 10.42

Netherlands 4153 27,168 5.99 6.54

Denmark 1061 7340 6.35 6.92

Ireland 1743 14,731 7.38 8.45

Japan 0.897 11,433 11.49 12.73

Germany 0.738 5486 5.35 7.43

China 1513 17,974 11.21 11.88

Hong Kong 1414 19,252 12.21 13.61

Singapore 1141 14,001 12.49 12.27

Finland 0.292 2661 9.51 9.11

Norway 0.169 1451 7.27 9.07

Sweden 1.393 11,507 8.19 8.26

Others 4.285 41,571 9.90 9.70

TOTAL 157,768 1,100,331 6.67 6.97

STATISTICS


A regular feature at the back of each issue of WineGrower to inform industry people about research projects being undertaken for their benefit. Newly approved projects (when available) are briefly summarised in the first section ‘Introducing New Projects’. Longer reports in the section headed ‘Progress Reports’, will describe what has been achieved so far. Scientists in charge of each project have been asked to make these reports reader-friendly rather than to follow the usual format of scientific papers. When completed, each project will be reported in full detail, with references, on the website: http://wineinf.nzwine.com/research.asp

Information and Updates on NZ Winegrowers Research Programmes.

Associate Editors: Philip Manson, Science & Innovations Manager • Dr Simon Hooker,

Research Programme Manager

Improving management of grapevine trunk diseases in New ZealandSouth Australian Research & Development Institute (SARDI)(Mark Sosnowski)

Detection of Plasmopara viticola (grapevine downy mildew) oospores in New ZealandPlant and Food Research (Peter Wood)

Describing GLRaV-3 sequence variants in New ZealandPlant and Food Research (Robin MacDiarmid) Sustainability/OrganicsOrganic Focus Vineyard Project Organic Winegrowers New Zealand (Rebecca Reider) Supported by MPI Sustainable Farming Fund

Residue profile in grape leaves and sheep meat and offal from leaf plucking in vineyardsAgrivet Services Ltd (Ben Vlaming)

Satellites for improved irrigation advicePlant and Food Research (Marc Greven) Supported by MPI Sustainable Farming Fund

Cost Reduction/Increased ProfitabilityNew opportunities for sustainable grape thinning Plant and Food Research (Mike Trought) Supported by MPI Sustainable Farming Fund

Quality Wine Styles for Existing and Developing MarketsIdentification of natural genetic variation in grapevine contributing to pathogen resistanceLincoln University (Chris Winefield)

Unlocking New Zealand Pinot noir aroma through aroma reconstitution approachAuckland University (Paul Kilmartin)

Understanding the accumulation of fruit based green aromatic methoxypyrazine compounds in Marlborough Sauvignon blanc grape berriesPlant and Food Research (Jeff Bennett)

Early defoliation: carryover and hand versus mechanicalEastern Institute of Technology (EIT) (Mark Krasnow)

Potassium nutrition of grapevinesPlant and Food Research (Mike Trought)

The development of a functional genomics tool for the capture and characterization of transposon mutants in Vitis Vinifera (PhD Scholarship)Rod Bonfiglioli ScholarshipLincoln University (Darrell Lizamore)

The Effect of Post-Harvest Defoliation on Carbon and Nitrogen Balance of High Yielding Sauvignon Blanc VinesPlant and Food Research (Marc Greven)

Identification of metabolites in high-thiol grape juicesAuckland UniServices Ltd (Silas Villas-Boas)

Investigation of perceived minerality in white wineLincoln University (Wendy Parr)

Identification and quantification of chiral volatile compounds in New Zealand wines that affect aromaLincoln University (Roland Harrison)

Tools for manipulating Sauvignon blanc wine flavour and aroma: Harvest and processing of grapesPlant and Food Research (Claire Grose) Pests and DiseaseImplementation of Virus Elimination Strategy Various (Nick Hoskins – Project Manager) Supported by MPI Sustainable Farming Fund

A sex pheromone as a citrophilus mealybug monitoring tool (2011-12)Plant and Food Research (Jim Walker)

Cryopreserved grapevine: a new way to maintain high-health germplasm and cultivar imports with less rigorous quarantine regulationsPlant and Food Research (Ranjith Pathirana)

Managing Botrytis in New Zealand Viticulture Vino Vitis Ltd (Ruby Andrews) Botrytis decision support (BDS) industry training & botrytis sampling protocolsPlant and Food Research (Rob Beresford)

Understanding causes of slip skinPlant and Food Research (Rob Beresford)

LIST OF PROJECTS

RESEARCH SUPPLEMENTRESEARCH SUPPLEMENT



PROGRESSREPORTS

BackgroundCarbohydrates (CHO) are the direct product of photosynthesis and are the primary energy com-pounds stored in plants, from which most organic compounds are synthesised.

In grapevines, the greatest proportion of total seasonally assimilated carbon is incorpo-rated into structural cellulose in roots, stems and shoots and these complex structural CHOs cannot be remobilised.

Resumption of vegetative and reproductive growth in the new season depends on carbon stored as non-structural CHO reserves, mainly in the form of starch. Other available forms of CHOs in tissues are soluble sugars, mainly sucrose, glucose and fructose.

These non-structural reserves support the early growth of new shoots, leaves and clusters in the new season. Non-structural CHO is generally at its highest concen-tration in grapevine roots, and root-derived CHO is the principal source for the annual re-establish-ment of growth in grapevines.

What we didWe wanted to determine if

there were benefits from longer postharvest leaf canopy activity, and if this was sufficient to justify the costs of autumn frost protec-tion. Thus, we needed to quantify the importance of postharvest carbon assimilation and nitrogen

uptake for maintaining production of high yielding Sauvignon blanc vines and for ensuring adequate replenishment of reserves to sus-tain optimal growth and produc-tion of high quality fruit. The study was set up at a vigorous Sauvignon Blanc block at the Marlborough Research Centre’s Rowley Cres-cent vineyard in Marlborough. We used two training systems (with anticipated differences in crop loads), with and without post-harvest defoliation. The two crop loads were established at pruning in year 1 as 4 x 12-node canes (4C vines) or 6 x 12-node canes (6C vines). Additionally, immediately after fruit harvest, all the leaves on half the vines of each pruning treatment were removed to create

the defoliation treatments. Sam-ples of root and trunk tissues were analysed throughout the season for carbohydrate (CHO) and nitro-gen (N) contents.What we found1. Photosynthesis and gas exchange

Over the three years of the trial no significant differences were found for leaf gas exchange or chlorophyll measurement but in 2011 there was a trend for the leaves in the 4C+foliage treatment to have a higher chlorophyll con-tent (stay green for longer) from late February onwards, than leaves in any of the other treatments. In all treatments, photosynthetic activity was at expected levels for the time of year.

2. Yield components and grape maturity

Although bud number set at pruning was 50% higher for the 6C treatment, not all buds devel-oped into shoots and there was only a 27%, 20% and 15% increase in shoots per vine in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively, compared with numbers on 4C vines (Table 1). This resulted in a 21% increase in yield in 2009 but in succeeding years there was no difference in yield between 4C and 6C vines. Overall no differences between 4C and 6C were found for fruit matu-rity parameters. Pruning weight for 6C vines was lower only in the first season, as in subsequent sea-sons the 50% higher shoot number was compensated by much lower

The Effect Of Postharvest Defoliation On Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc Productivity

Greven MM, Neal SM, Tustin DS, Vasconcelos MC, Boldingh H

08-337

Table 1. Fruit yield, fruit quality and vine growth parameters of Sauvignon blanc cropped to four (4C) or six canes (6c) per vine.

2009 2010 2011

Treatment 4C 6C Sig 4C 6C Sig 4C 6C Sig

Yield (kg/vine) 12.7 15.4 *** 9.3 9.8 ns 10.5 11.2 ns

Clusters/shoot 1.85 1.83 ns 1.60 1.43 * 1.51 1.66 *

Cluster weight (g) 129 124 ns 118 109 * 146 123 ***

Soluble solids (0Brix) 20.5 19.9 * 23.5 23.0 ns 20.3 20.5 ns

Juice pH 2.88 2.86 ns 2.95 2.93 ns 3.01 2.99 ns

TA 12.8 12.5 ns 11.8 12.2 ns 11.4 11.1 ns

Budbreak (%) 99 88 *** 89 93 ns 96 77 ***

No. shoots/vine 52 66 *** 44 53 *** 48 55 ***

Pruning Weight 2.4 2.2 * 2.0 2.0 ns 2.20 2.09 ns

Shoot weight (g) 49 36 *** 44 37 ** 46.3 38.0 ***

Sign: *** = P<0.001, ** = P<0.01, * = P<0.05, ns = P<0.05


shoot weight than on 4C vines.Defoliation did not reduce

yield in the first year. However, after two consecutive years of postharvest defoliation there was a significant reduction in yield mainly caused by lower cluster weights (Table 2). No influence of defoliation was found on fruit maturity. Vine development showed that, especially after two seasons of defoliation, percent-age budbreak was reduced at the start of the season, as were prun-ing weight and individual shoot weight at the end of the season. Both defoliating and increasing the cane number treatments are demanding extra vine resources, which is illustrated for some yield parameters where the two treat-ments reinforced each other. The number of blind nodes increased with defoliation and 6C vines, while bunch weight decreased. However, no interaction of the effects of these two treatments was found on yield per vine.

In 2009, as a consequence of the higher productivity of the 6C vines, there was a small delay in fruit reaching a target maturity at

harvest, resulting from the lower leaf to fruit ratio. In 2010 and 2011, no differences in fruit maturity were found between 4C and 6C vines. Nor were any differences found in fruit maturity between defoliated and non-defoliated vines.3. Total nitrogen

Increasing cane number from 4 to 6 had only a marginal influence on N reserves.

Defoliated vines accumulated less N in the trunk between har-vest and bloom (Figure 1), prob-ably partly because of the loss of leaves before N could be recov-ered. It is unclear if less N has been taken up from the soil. The increase in N use from trunk and root reserves during the growing season indicates a shortage of N in the vine, which would have caused reduced growth and less photosynthetic capacity. It is therefore likely that this played a role in explaining the lower shoot number, shoot weight and pruning weights as well as the lower yield in 2011 (Table 2).

Seasonal changes in N concen-tration in vine roots in this study showed an increase in N concen-tration from harvest through the dormant period and early into the next season. This suggests either that vine root systems remain active in N uptake throughout winter, or that the aerial vine structure continuously exports N to the root system during the dormant period.

4. CarbohydratesAfter harvest on all treatments,

starch declined in both roots (Fig-

ure 2) and trunk (Figure 3). Starch concentrations dropped consider-ably faster in the roots of defoli-ated vines. The effect was further increased by the additional stress factor of an increased number of canes laid down. Over the same seasonal period, a significant increase in total sugars occurred in the trunk tissues (Figure 3).

CHO is needed for hardening off the shoots for winter. In the latter part of winter these soluble CHOs are essential for when new season development resumes. With sufficient time after harvest and a large enough leaf area, the required CHO can be produced by the photosynthetically active leaves.

In case of early leaf drop or defoliation, these CHOs have to be obtained from reserves. It is worth noting that, as most of the shoots are being pruned off the vines, much of this CHO reserve is lost to the plant.

When pruning to a higher number of canes (6C) a greater need for CHOs is created, both to harden off the additional shoots as well as for new season devel-opment.

Table 2. Fruit yield, fruit quality and vine growth parameters of Sauvignon blanc defoliated (Defol) or not defoliated (Fol) after harvest in 2009.

2009 2010 2011

Treatment Def Fol Sig Def Fol Sig Def Fol Sig

Yield (kg/vine) 9.22 9.92 ns 10.0 11.6 **

Clusters/shoot 1.54 1.47 ns 1.60 1.57 ns

Cluster weight (g) 113 113 ns 127 143 *

Soluble solids (0Brix) 23.3 23.1 ns 20.9 19.9 ns

Juice pH 2.94 2.95 ns 3.01 2.99 ns

TA 12.0 12.0 ns 10.8 11.7 ns

Budbreak (%) 92 91 ns 83 90 **

No. shoots/vine 47 51 *** 50 52 ns

Pruning Weight 1.8 2.2 *** 1.99 2.30 ***

Shoot weight (g) 37.9 42.8 * 39.7 44.6 *

Sign: *** = P<0.001, ** = P<0.01, * = P<0.05, ns = P<0.05

Figure 1. Total nitrogen (N) concentration measured in root and trunk tissue from Sauvignon blanc grapevines that were defoliated (Defol) or not (Fol) immediately after harvest (15 April 2009 and 21 April 2010, 19 April 2011) with error bars indicating StError.


Although defoliation and increased potential crop load treatments reduced root starch content significantly going into the winter period, all treatments showed starch content decline to a common minimum seasonal concentration, which occurred around flowering.Practical implications and conclusions

Defoliation did have an impact on carbohydrate reserves in vines, but only after several consecutive years.

We have shown that, individ-ually, defoliation and increased crop load deplete carbohydrate reserves in Marlborough Sauvi-gnon blanc vines. Despite our best attempts, however, we did not manage to create a significant interaction between defoliation and increased crop load on carbo-hydrate reserves. In the first year of the experiment, no defoliation occurred before the 4- and 6-cane pruning treatments were applied in the winter. The higher cane number increased yield by approx-imately 50%. In the second and

third years, the defoliation treat-ments were applied before set-ting the cane number at pruning. However, during these years, no yield differences resulted from the higher cane number treatments because of an auto-regulation of the cropload by the vine.

Defoliation immediately after harvest did stop the produc-tion of carbohydrate needed for hardening off the shoots before winter. The lack of newly pro-duced carbohydrates resulted in the plant remobilising reserve carbohydrates. After defoliat-ing postharvest for one year, no differences were found for yield or for any of the yield and qual-ity parameters measured in the following year, however a small decrease in vegetative growth was observed. After two consecutive years of defoliation, the cumula-tive effects of smaller, less fruitful canes from year 1 and reduced car-bohydrates from year 2 did reduce both yield and vegetative growth in the third growing season. We can hypothesise that an increased crop load associated with post har-

vest defoliation would result in an even greater reduction of reserve carbohydrates than increased crop load alone, reducing even further the following season’s capacity for both vegetative growth and yield.

In practical terms, the defo-liation treatment as applied in this study can be equated to early leaf fall due to frost immediately postharvest. Our work showed a potential crop loss after the second year of defoliation of 9%, which would equate to a loss of approximately 1 tonne per hectare for Sauvignon blanc, based on a Marlborough average yield of 11 tonnes per hectare. At 2011 grape prices, the financial loss would in the order of $1,200 per hectare.

A capital cost of up to $55,000 per wind machine to protect 5 to 7 hectares would result in hold-ing the cost (including deprecia-tion) in the order of $2,000 per hectare. At face value, it would be hard to justify the installa-tion of wind machines for post-harvest frost protection alone. If, however, wind machines are already installed, then the oper-

ating costs (in the order of $12-$20 per hectare per hour for fuel and maintenance but not labour) would equate to a total cost of only $200 per hectare in a severe frost event of 10-12 hours’ dura-tion. The capital cost of sprinkler frost protection systems is even more prohibitive than that of wind machines. Incurring the cost of helicopters for frost protection at a rate of $1,500 per hour would quickly become non-viable (for example, if the area able to be protected by single helicopter fell below 15 hectares and the total protection time was above 10 hours).

In summary, in situations where frost protection systems (including sprinklers) are already installed, we recommend that postharvest frost protection should be carried out when vines are at risk of having low carbohy-drate reserves.

This would include young vines, vines that have been car-rying heavy crops, and vines that have suffered early leaf fall in previous seasons. The early leaf

Figure 2. Total sugars and starch measured in root tissue from Sauvignon blanc grapevines grown as 4 – (4C) or 6-cane (6C) systems (each cane with 12 nodes) and that were defoliated (Defol) or not (Fol) immediately after harvest (15 April 2009, 21 April 2010 and 19 April 2011).

Figure 3. Total sugars and starch measured in trunk tissue from Sauvignon blanc grapevines grown as 4 – (4C) or 6-cane (6C) systems (each cane with 12 nodes) and that were defoliated (Defol) or not (Fol) immediately after harvest (15 April 2009, 21 April 2010 and 19 April 2011).


fall may not only be the result of frost but also could be due to other problems such as water stress or potassium deficiency. The need for postharvest frost protection becomes increasingly important when carbohydrate-depleting

effects accumulate over a number of seasons.Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge New Zealand Wine-growers for funding this project; Marlborough Research Centre for

the use of the Rowley Crescent vineyard; PFR staff at the Marlbor-ough Research Centre for field and laboratory technical assistance; Chen Goh of PFR, Ruakura, for the CHO analysis; and Delphine Goffette and Tremain Hatch, over-

seas intern students, who helped on this project.

• Resources from the Designer Grapevines FRST programme (C06X0707) have been aligned to support this project alongside the NZW funding.

Virus in grapevine is an issue for the New Zealand wine industry, with infection leading to lower yields, reduced quality and delayed harvest, particularly in red varie-ties. In addition to controlling the spread of the viruses already pre-sent, there is a clear need to pre-vent the entry of new viruses into the country. Protocols for elimina-tion of viruses, and techniques for maintaining and delivering high-health plant material, hence offer

value to the industry. Thermo-therapy and meristem culture are the traditional methods used for elimination of viruses. Cryopreser-vation is a technique for long-term storage of vegetatively propagated plant material, and liquid nitrogen at temperatures ranging from -196 to -140°C is frequently used for this. Well-established cryopre-served collections are available for other vegetatively propagated crops such as banana (Figure 1),

raspberry, hop, potato, garlic, elm, mint, apple, pear and Prunus.

Figure 1. Cryopreservation of banana at the Tropical Crops Improvement Laboratory, KU Leuven, Belgium. A) Banana mer-istems in cryoprotection solution ready for cryopreservation, B) Cryogenic storage system carry-ing banana meristems of the world collection preserved by droplet vitrification method, C) Colour-coded vials in boxes with banana meristems, D) Banana plants regenerated after cryopreserva-tion (right) compared with con-trol plant (left). Courtesy Dr Bart Panis, KU Leuven, Belgium.

In recent years, with the devel-opment and implementation of new cryopreservation techniques has come the realisation that plants regenerated have been freed from a range of viruses and phytoplasmas. This application of cryo technology, called cryo-therapy, is being integrated into high-health germplasm conser-vation programmes in several countries. In the “droplet vitrifi-cation” method we have recently developed for grapevine, shoot tips and axillary buds from tissue

culture-grown plants are directly immersed in liquid nitrogen (Figure 2). Only preconditioned highly cytoplasmic meristematic cells survive the freezing process in this method, because only these cells can tolerate the dehydration caused by the vitrification solu-tion. Therefore, cryotherapy by droplet vitrification can be consid-ered a precise method of meristem culture.

Figure 2. Droplet vitrification, the method we developed for cryo-therapy of grapevine axillary buds and shoot tips involves growing plants in tissue culture (A), dis-secting the shoot tips and axil-lary buds and treating them with vitrification solution (B), direct plunging into an open cryo tube in liquid nitrogen (C) and regen-erating plants after 1 hour of liquid nitrogen treatment (D).

Ice crystal formation during freezing is lethal to plant tissue. Vitrification refers to an unusual state of water at subzero tempera-tures. During vitrification, water transforms into an amorphous and glassy non-crystalline state. In this state, water is amorphous and lacks the organised crystal

Cryotherapy: A New Method For Eradicating Viruses From Grapevine Ranjith Pathirana, Andrew McLachlan and Duncan Hedderley

The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited, Palmerston North.

10 - 107

Figure 1.


structure observed in ice. For vit-rification to occur, the solutes in the cells need to be highly concen-trated, thus preventing water mol-ecules coming together to form ice. The rapid cooling at 130°C/s from immersion of tissues in liq-uid nitrogen also helps vitrifica-tion, as water molecules have no time to crystallise. Vitrification-based ice-free cryopreservation methods require that plant mate-rial is preconditioned by growth on special media, or with specific growth conditions, followed by protection with vitrification solu-tions before plunging into liquid nitrogen. These requirements vary by plant species, plant part used and even the conditions under which the plants are grown.

Our goal was to develop a droplet vitrification protocol for a diverse range of grape varie-ties and use it to remove leafroll viruses from infected vines. Tis-sue cultures were established for 10 grape varieties obtained from a range of sources, which included some infected with several dif-ferent viruses. The sensitivity of each accession to cryo-protective vitrification solution was tested and treatment times optimised for shoot tips (35 min) and axillary buds (40 min). To improve recov-ery after cryopreservation, pre-

culture methods were developed to impart tolerance to freezing. Regeneration varied with variety, ranging from 6.8% in Rootstock 41B to 44.7% in Riesling (Figure 3). We then tested this protocol for its effectiveness for virus elimination by cryotherapy.

Figure 3. Shoot tips and axillary buds of ten accessions were cryo-preserved by droplet vitrification. After holding in liquid nitrogen (-196°C) for 1 h, the shoot tips and axillary buds were transferred to a recovery solution followed by transfer to recovery plates and plant regeneration media. Plant regeneration was assessed after 12 weeks of culture. (V+) represents virus-infected clones.

The accessions used in our experiments were Lakemont Seedless and Chardonnay culti-vars infected with Grapevine leaf-roll-associated virus-3 (GLRaV-3), Sauvignon blanc 316 and Pinot gris infected with GLRaV-2, and another Sauvignon Blanc clone infected with both GLRaV-3 and GLRaV-1. The control treatment comprised all pre-treatments and exposure to cryo-protective vitri-fication solution, but no immer-sion in liquid nitrogen. After plant regeneration, samples were sent to a NZW-accredited, independ-ent laboratory for virus testing.

Although the control plants were still infected with their respective viruses, all plants regenerated after liquid nitrogen treatments were found to be free of virus. This technique therefore has the potential to remove three viruses of the Closteroviridae family and was successful even when a clone had multiple infections. Although promising, the proto-col needs testing against other viruses, phytoplasmas and other pathogenic microorganisms from infected vines. The technique has the potential to provide a useful tool for cultivar importation, for post-importation treatment of infected material, and for ensuring propagators can use clean mate-rial for grafting. Following further validation, this method could be part of a rigorous protocol for importation of new germplasm by the New Zealand wine industry. Once the findings reported here are verified by further virus test-ing, our protocol could be part of a process designed to minimise risks of new pathogens entering New Zealand with new germplasm importations, as well as providing propagators with a new technique for eliminating virus from their

stock plants. To estimate the feasibility of

using cryopreservation to con-serve high value germplasm, the data on regeneration rates were used to calculate the numbers of shoot tips that would need to be conserved to provide, say, a 95% chance of a single shoot tip or axil-lary bud surviving cryopreserva-tion. These numbers ranged from 43 for the poorest perform-ing genotype, 41B, to as few as six for the highest performing, Ries-ling. To put this in terms of space requirements for cryopreserved germplasm storage, a single 2-ml cryo tube with 15-20 shoot tips could ensure conservation of a cul-tivar. A standard liquid nitrogen container is designed to hold 750 - 1000 such tubes (Figure 1). With more research directed towards understanding cultivar responses to different treatments and with development of techniques to improve survival of “difficult” genotypes, cryopreservation of grape germplasm will become a reality.

This project has demonstrated the potential of cryotherapy as a technique for removal of viruses from infected grape plants.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.


IntroductionIn 2009, New Zealand Winegrow-ers successfully secured funding from the MAF Sustainable Farming Fund to study Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 (leafroll virus). Over the next three years, the Virus Elimination Project team set about working alongside growers in Hawke’s Bay and in Martinbor-ough to determine the extent of the problem and to identify practical solutions to manage the disease in red grape varieties. For Plant & Food Research, the focus was on 11 study blocks, all of which were

situated on the Gimblett Gravels. Annually in each of these blocks we assessed leafroll virus incidence and spread, whilst simultaneously monitoring mealybugs.

As vectors of leafroll virus, mealybugs are the most important pest group in New Zealand vine-yards. The most commonly found species are the citrophilus and the longtailed mealybugs, both of which spread leafroll virus from infected to healthy grapevines. For a number of years, there has been an emphasis on raising awareness of mealybugs, and it is in the con-

text of leafroll virus where most of the recent focus has been.

For the New Zealand wine sector, leafroll virus spread by mealybugs remains a major prob-lem, imposing a range of negative impacts on productivity and ulti-mately, on wine quality. With no cure, leafroll virus can impose significant economic costs and may affect vineyard longevity so once the presence of this disease is confirmed, it is important that every effort be made to control it quickly and contain its spread.

Where leafroll virus incidence is at or below about 20%, one means of control often referred to is that of roguing – the removal of individual or small clusters of infected or symptomatic vines. Unlike in white varieties, the symptoms of leafroll virus are relatively easy to identify in red varieties, being visually character-ised by dark red downward curling leaves with green veins (Figure 1). Once located, a symptomatic vine should be marked with coloured flagging tape around the trunk so

Controlling Leafroll Virus Relies On Mealybug Numbers Being Low

Vaughn Bell, Jim Walker and Duncan Hedderley

The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Ltd, Havelock North & Palmerston North

08-116

In addition to virus removal, this research potentially provides the wine industry with a novel, cost-effective way to maintain clonal material away from the field, avoiding the biotic and abiotic fac-tors that are a constant threat to the field-maintained collections. Acknowledgements

This work was funded by New Zealand Winegrowers for work in New Zealand and the Royal Society of New Zealand for work in Belgium. We thank Dr Bart Panis (Leuven), Dr Francesco Carimi (Palermo) and Dr Mau-rizio Lambardi (Florence) for their input. Thanks also to Edwige

Andre (Leuven), Dr Angela Carra (Palermo), French intern students Emmanuelle Thonnat and Mor-gane Grasselly, Sriya Pathirana and Andrew Mullan (Palmerston North) for assistance. Help by Julie Ryan for greenhouse accli-mation of plants is greatly appreci-ated. Virus testing was conducted

by Ilze Greyling at Linnaeus Laboratories, Gisborne. Tony Baker, Vaughn Bell, Dion Mundy and John Meyer supplied grape-vine material for New Zealand experiments. Cryopreservation work reported here was initiated under the European COST Action 871 (CRYOPLANET).

Table 1. Details of grape variety, year planted and total number of vines planted in 2009 in five of the Hawke’s Bay study blocks.

Block ID Grape variety

Year planted

No. of vines per block1

A Merlot 1997 1,536

C Merlot 2000 1,040

E Cab Sav 1999 2,251

I Cab Sav 1993-4 1,584

K Cab Sav 2000 1,2431 Vine number before roguing commenced and excluding any replanting beyond 2009.

Figure 1. The visual symptoms of leafroll virus as seen on the leaves of a Cabernet Sauvignon vine in Hawke’s Bay, April 2012.


that at the first opportunity post-harvest, it can be rogued. Ideally, all infected plant material, includ-ing as much of the root system as possible, should be removed off-site and destroyed.

In Hawke’s Bay, the Virus Elim-ination Project has shown that this approach can successfully control leafroll virus in red varieties. In this article, our aim is to highlight the importance of mealybugs and the relationship between the number of vectors and the effec-tiveness of leafroll virus control. Therefore, does mealybug abun-dance influence the success of a leafroll virus roguing programme?MethodsSite details

We present data from 2009 to 2012 collected from five red vari-ety blocks located in the Gimblett Gravels, Hawke’s Bay (Table 1). The data showed two contrast-ing outcomes: In blocks A, C and E, leafroll virus was effectively controlled in three to four years, whereas in blocks I and K, rogu-ing over the same timeline did not control leafroll virus spread. As a consequence of accumulated losses due to leafroll virus, the remaining 1,000 vines in block I were removed in winter 2011, and it is likely that the remaining vines in block K will be removed in win-ter 2013.Leafroll virus mapping

In March and April of each year since 2009, we have walked the length of every vine row in each study block looking at the vine leaves for symptoms of leafroll virus. Once a symptomatic vine was found, its precise location (by row, bay and vine number) was recorded on a block-specific MS Excel® spreadsheet and flagging tape was tied around the trunk, which enabled vineyard person-nel to later identify and rogue it from the block.

Multi-year mapped data of symptomatic vines offer insights into the spatial distribution and spread of leafroll virus. For the most part, new symptomatic vines have been in relatively close proximity to those leafroll virus ‘hot-spots’ first recorded in 2009. Therefore, from 2010, a focus in each block was to map and measure any spread of the disease beyond the ‘hot-spots’. A com-mon observation was within-row spread of leafroll virus to neigh-bouring vines in one or both direc-tions. These within-row ‘nearest neighbours’ were defined as ‘first’ (the adjacent vine on either side of the symptomatic vine) and ‘second’ vines (the next immedi-ate neighbour of each of the ‘first’ vines). Consequently, a single symptomatic vine could result in the disease spreading along a row in one direction or the other, infecting both the ‘first’ and ‘sec-ond’ vine (a total of three vines lost), or it could simultaneously spread in both directions affect-ing each of the ‘first’ and ‘second’ vines (a total of five vines lost). In this article, we describe the occurrence of either pattern of spread within a single season as a ‘run’ of consecutive ‘first’ and ‘second’ vines.Mealybug monitoring

Assessments of mealybug numbers in each vineyard were undertaken in March of 2010, 2011 and 2012. Each study block was notionally divided in four sectors of approximately equal size. In each sector, one vine leaf was taken from a 10-15 cm band above or below the cordon from each of 100 vines (n=75 leaves in 2010). Leaves were placed in a plastic bag labelled by vineyard name and sector number. The process was repeated in each sec-tor until 400 leaves per block were collected (n=300 leaves in 2010). Later in the laboratory, the leaves from each block were inspected under magnification to provide an absolute count so that the aver-age number of mealybugs per leaf could be calculated.Results and Discussion

Since 2009, we have built up a comprehensive picture of leafroll virus, including its distribution across each block and a measure of the extent to which the disease has spread. Consequently, we have been able to measure the out-comes of leafroll virus control in blocks A, C and E and to compare and contrast them with the out-comes in blocks I and K.

In 2009, leafroll virus inci-dence among the five study blocks ranged from a minimum of 4% in

block A to a maximum of 16% in block E (Table 2). In blocks A, C and E, good progress was made towards controlling the disease, so much so, that by 2012, leafroll virus incidence was equivalent to or less than 0.4%, thus allow-ing us to conclude that in these blocks at least, the disease is now under control. The block E result in particular was encouraging, with a leafroll virus incidence of just 0.2%. In 2009, leafroll virus incidence was 16%, a figure we believed was close to the 20% threshold beyond which roguing could not operate effectively to control leafroll virus.

In contrast, with cumulative vine losses of 37% in block I and 41% in block K, it was apparent that roguing alone was not con-trolling the spread of the dis-ease across either block. Clearly, greater control of mealybugs was required to support the roguing programme.

Comparing mealybug numbers in blocks A, C and E with those found in blocks I and K, provides a useful insight into the impor-tance of vector management when attempting to control leafroll virus and its rate of spread.

Blocks A, C and E had consist-ently low numbers of mealybugs in the vine canopy (Table 3).

Table 2. Leafroll virus incidence recorded in five of the Hawke’s Bay study blocks between 2009 and 2012. Note: in all blocks, the 2009 incidence data will have included vines that acquired leafroll virus in earlier years.

1Data corrected for the planting of replacement vines since 2009.2Because of the removal of the remaining 1,000 vines in winter 2011, no data were collected in 2012.3Number of symptomatic vines rogued per year.

Leafroll virus incidence (%)

Year Block A1 Block C Block E1 Block I2 Block K

2009 4.0 (62)3 10.6 (110) 16.0 (361) 15.1 (239) 9.9 (123)

2010 2.5 (39) 4.3 (40) 5.9 (111) 13.4 (180) 17.0 (190)

2011 1.2 (18) 0.1 (1) 0.3 (5) 14.2 (165) 10.3 (95)

2012 0.4 (6) 0.0 (0) 0.2 (3) - 12.7 (106)

% Cumulative vine loss

8.1 (125) 14.5 (151) 21.3 (480) 36.9 (584) 41.4 (514)


Of the 1,100 leaves inspected per block since March 2010, we found totals of 85, 22 and 37 mealy-bugs, respectively. On average, the range was 0.02 to 0.08 mealybugs per leaf, or put another way, one mealybug found for every 13 to 50 leaves inspected since 2010.

By comparison, mealybug infestations in the vine canopy in blocks I and K were high in all years. In block I, a total of 1,223 mealybugs were found on the 700 vine leaves inspected, while in block K, 857 mealybugs were found on the 1,100 vine leaves inspected since 2010. Infestations of this magnitude meant that, on average, there were few vine leaves inspected without mealybugs in either block.

Common to all five blocks was the vigilance around leafroll virus identification together with a strong emphasis on roguing. What most distinguished the successful outcomes in leafroll virus control in blocks A, C and E from the poor outcomes in I and K were differ-ences in the numbers of mealy-bugs, and it is this factor alone that offers the most likely explanation for the contrasting outcomes in leafroll virus control. By analysing the mealybug data for blocks A, C and E (low numbers of mealybugs) and comparing them with blocks I and K (high numbers of mealy-

bugs) we found that in each year, the differences between the two groups were statistically signifi-cant (P=0.022 for 2010; P=0.007 for 2011; P=0.013 for 2012, based on a Poisson generalised linear model).

Based on data from each block map, we tracked the frequency with which ‘runs’ of consecutive ‘first’ and ‘second’ symptomatic vines were observed within a sin-gle season in each block (Table 4). In blocks A, C and E, it was rare to observe a ‘run’ in 2010 and 2011, with just eight recorded instances of this pattern of disease spread. In contrast, such ‘runs’ were rela-tively common in blocks I and K, with 46 recorded in both blocks in 2010, and 37 in 2011. Despite a third year of roguing in block K,

another 15 ‘runs’ were recorded in 2012 while at the same time in blocks A, C and E, this pattern of disease spread was not observed at all (Table 4).

These data offer a simple yet compelling measure of within-row leafroll virus spread to neighbour-ing vines in two groups of blocks with vastly different numbers of mealybugs and importantly, con-trasting outcomes in controlling leafroll virus.

Does mealybug abundance influence the success of a leafroll virus roguing programme? Abso-lutely, although a note of caution is required. While mealybugs are clearly important in the context of leafroll virus, we are neither advo-cating complete eradication of this insect pest from vineyards nor

suggesting that mealybug absence is a prerequisite for successful dis-ease control. On the contrary, the evidence from blocks A, C and E showed that despite the presence of mealybugs in the vine canopy, albeit at very low numbers, leafroll virus was controlled in just three to four years. Assuming a robust programme of identification and roguing is adopted and main-tained, the evidence from these study blocks showed that efforts to control leafroll virus success-fully remained highly dependent upon low numbers of mealybugs.Recommendations

Being vectors of leafroll virus, mealybugs are critical elements to successful management of the incidence and spread of the disease. Where appropriate, we suggest greater emphasis be given to the annual mealybug spray programme and suggest that for all vineyard operators, this task assumes priority status. Cur-rent best practice is outlined in “Mealybug Control with Insec-ticides”, Fact Sheet NZVE104, October 2009. It can be accessed on the New Zealand Winegrow-ers (NZW) website: http://wineinf.nzwine.com/research_outputs.asp?id=7&cid=2&type=r

Identifying and finding mealy-bugs in the vineyard are outlined

Table 4. The number of ‘runs’ of consecutive ‘first’ and ‘second’ leafroll virus symptomatic grapevines observed within a single season between 2010 and 2012 in study blocks A, C and E (good leafroll virus outcome), and blocks I and K (poor leafroll virus outcome).

In block I, the removal of the remaining vines in winter 2011 explains the absence of 2012 data.

2010 2011 2012 Data combined

Block ID

Consecutive ‘first’ & second infections




A 0 1 0 1

C 1 0 0 1

E 6 0 0 6

I 23 27 - 50

K 23 10 15 48

Table 3. Average number of mealybugs found on sampled grapevine leaves in five of the Hawke’s Bay study blocks, 2010 to 2012 (n=300 leaves sampled per block in 2010; 400 per block in 2011 & 2012).

In block I, the loss of the remaining vines in winter 2011 explains the absence of 2012 data.1Numbers of mealybugs found during leaf inspections per block per year.2Total numbers of mealybugs found during the survey period.

2010 2011 2012 Total of years

Block ID

Mean no. mealybugs/leaf (1)

Mean no. mealybugs/leaf

Mean no. mealybugs/leaf

Mean no. mealybugs/leaf (2)

A 0.02 (6) 0.17 (70) 0.02 (9) 0.08 (85)

C 0.0 (0) 0.01 (3) 0.05 (19) 0.02 (22)

E 0.03 (9) 0.05 (19) 0.02 (9) 0.03 (37)

I 1.1 (317) 2.3 (906) - 1.7 (1,223)

K 0.4 (116) 1.5 (583) 0.4 (158) 0.8 (857)

in “Mealybugs – knowing the pest”, and “How to look for mealy-bugs”, both of which are NZW Fact Sheets (NZVE105 & 106, October 2009) accessible on the above website.

We recommend that while attempting to bring the disease under control, growers adopt the full mealybug insecticide spray programme, which includes a pre-budburst Tokuthion® and two pre-flowering applications of buprofezin (e.g. Applaud®).

The recommended spray vol-ume for Tokuthion® and bupro-fezin is to use not less than 1,000 litres of spray mix per hectare

(Table 5). An incomplete and low water volume mealybug spray programme is unlikely to provide the coverage and the vine wetting necessary to penetrate the many hiding places on a vine where mealybugs are commonly found early in the season (in cracks, crev-ices, and under flaking bark).

If Tokuthion® is not applied, we recommend the minimum mealybug spray programme include two pre-flowering bupro-fezin applications. Adopting either the full programme, or one limited to buprofezin only, can be effec-tive for ongoing mealybug control. It is especially relevant during

the initial phases of leafroll virus control, when quick reductions to mealybug populations and disease incidence are critical to prevent epidemic spread of leafroll virus.

Imidacloprid is currently regis-tered for use in vineyards against mealybugs. Its application is lim-ited to that of a soil drench around the base of non-cropping vines, which includes newly planted vines or those marked for removal. Specific details of the protocols for imidacloprid use can be found in two Fact Sheets: “Vine removal and leafroll virus” (NZVE 108) and “Vine establishment for replants” (NZVE 109). Both are available via

the above web link. Chemical company recom-

mendations related to mealybug insecticide spray volumes and product concentrations are listed in Table 5.

This article summarises part of a much larger research project. The full report, “Managing Grape-vine leafroll-associated virus 3 in red grape varieties: Final report”, can be accessed on the NZW members-only website: http://www.nzwine.com/Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial assistance given by New Zealand Winegrowers and the MAF Sus-tainable Farming Fund. Sincere thanks are due to the manage-ment and the staff of the Hawke’s Bay study blocks whose ongoing commitment and support of this research project have been pivotal to its success. Professor Gerhard Pietersen has guided and encour-aged us throughout this project.

Finally, we wish to remember and acknowledge the friendship and guidance offered by the late Dr Rod Bonfiglioli, who dared to dream of a time without leafroll virus. Of this research project, we are confident he would have enjoyed its many positive achieve-ments.


Table 5. The recommended timing, spray mix and concentration for prothiofos, buprofezin and imidacloprid on grapevines for mealybug control (refer New Zealand Novachem Agrichemical Manual. AgriMedia Limited, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2012. Editor, S. Young).

Time of application

Product Recommended spray mix (L/ha)

Recommended concentration

Pre-budburst0 Tokuthion® 1,000 100ml/100L of water

Pre-flowering1 Applaud® 40SC 1,000 30ml/100L of water

Buprimax 1,000 30ml/100L of water

MortarTM 1,000 30ml/100L of water

Pilan® 25WP 1,000 50g/100L of water

OvationTM 50WDG 1,000 25g/100L of water

Autumn/winter2 Nuprid® 350SC3 N/A 1.5ml/500ml of water

0 Recommended that 1% oil is added.1Apply twice, 14-21 days apart. Do not apply buprofezin after the start of flowering.2Apply as a single drench treatment to the base of non-bearing replant vines and/or vines awaiting removal.3In Young (2012), only Nuprid® 350SC was specifically mentioned for use on non-bearing grapevines.

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