Rural delivery: Limit yields or ruin reputation

By PAUL TUDOR*

Sustainability seems to be the buzzword of 2002.

So here is a poser for the New Zealand wine industry - how can we sustain our export success in the face of stronger international competition and a stronger dollar? More importantly, can we sustain high quality during this period of strengthening supply?

After three vintages curtailed by the elements, our industry is celebrating a sizeable and healthy crop this year.

Yet there are reports of some horrendous overcropping - as one industry figure called it - and quality-conscious producers are concerned about the long-term impact this might have on their business. At particular risk is the reputation of our key export brand, sauvignon blanc from Marlborough.

Vineyard crop weight is known as the yield - in this part of the world measured in tonnes per hectare. Almost everyone involved in winegrowing, including such outspoken vine scientists as Dr Richard Smart, believe that limiting yields is one of the best ways to improve wine quality.

Robert Parker jnr, the great American wine writer, summed up this view in Decanter magazine in June 1999: "Bad wines come from high yields and an industrial mentality ... good wines are produced from the low yield, artisan approach."

Sauvignon blanc is a bit of an enigma, because even at ridiculously high yields, it retains its unique and identifiable herbal stamp. Some might even say it grows like a weed in our humid, maritime, yet sunny conditions.

New Zealand sauvignon throws out a huge canopy and is thus a good sugar generator - on average, alcohol levels are a lot higher here than in France. But heavily cropped grapes from young vines produce higher acidity (which some see as a positive character in sauvignon.)

When people complain that Marlborough sauvignon blanc isn't what it used to be, they are partly right.

Unfortunately, I am seeing a growing underclass of Marlborough sauvignons, which lack the palate weight and richness, texture and balance of our very best labels.

As British wine writer and master of wine Tim Atkin recently noted in the Observer: "New Zealand is particularly guilty of producing overpriced, me-too sauvignons."

Our industry seems only too ready to embrace high yields.

Oyster Bay Marlborough Vineyards' 1999 prospectus, for instance, projected a crop level of 11.5 tonnes/ha for sauvignon blanc. The Terra Vitae prospectus in 1998 set 13.5 tonnes/ha as its target sauvignon blanc yield, and the 1993 Seddon Vineyards prospectus forecast a staggering 16.8 tonnes/ha for its sauvignon blanc block.

In this context, the Medway/Brackenfield Vineyards venture (formerly The Crossings) should be given a medal for setting their sights lower - a more realistic 7 tonnes/ha for premium sauvignon blanc and 9 tonnes/ha for "mid range" wine.

Contrast this with regulations in France, where growers in the leading sauvignon blanc appellations of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fum are not allowed to go above 9 tonnes/ha and be entitled to the appellation label.

The final figures from this year's vintage are still not available, but I would not be surprised if the average yield for 2002 Marlborough sauvignon blanc is somewhere around 11 tonnes/ha to 12 tonnes/ha.

I would like to think (and I sincerely hope) the median yield is considerably lower than this - not that Winegrowers of New Zealand publishes this as a separate figure - and that it was the short-term greed and reckless practices of a few that have blown out the average.

Some of the better producers have assured me they were able to adapt to the higher than expected yields this year and still make fine sauvignon. But we cannot sustain this - we have to get our yields down.

It is ironic that in that same Decanter interview, Parker expressed his dislike of New Zealand wine (have we done enough to change his mind?). And this too from the lawyer-turned- wine critic: "I would love to pass a law that could strictly enforce lower yields around the world."

* Paul Tudor is an independent wine critic and correspondent for FMCG magazine.

* paulrtudor@hotmail.com