KEY POINTS:
Does the future of New Zealand wine's commercial success depend on geography?
"At the very top level of the wine market identity is just about everything. The land it comes from and the people who make it are more important than the actual quality of the wine."
A bold statement, but the man making it is in a position to know. Dr Damien Martin gained his PhD in ecophysiology from Bordeaux University in France, so not only is he bilingual, he knows the true meaning of the trendy wine term "terroir", and how important it is for the New Zealand wine industry.
Bordeaux is arguably the greatest of the world's institutes of advanced wine knowledge and, on graduation, Martin immediately became a hot property in the New Zealand wine business. Not because of his cultural nous but because of his advanced knowledge of the almost mystic art of viniculture; the growing of grapes for the express purpose of making wine.
Given the state of New Zealand winemaking, Martin is one of the keys in defining the future path the industry will take. While industrial winemaking continues to dominate the wine business almost as much as industry defines the nature of our dairy and meat industries, local winemakers have reached a decisive point at which they have to decide whether to follow the path to the international commodity market or take a deep breath and aim for the very top of the fine wine trade.
If they are intent on being top, geographic indication (GI) is vital to their success. This system of certified origin of a product was introduced to modern commerce by the Portuguese politician the Marquis de Pombal in 1756, and lies at the foundation of port wine quality. In the 20th century, it was adopted and adapted by nations throughout Europe to provide a sound basis for their wine marketing efforts and it has become the accepted standard of the World Trade Organisation for protecting the commercial identity of agricultural products.
The TRIPS (trade related international property rights) agreement brokered by the WTO is the reason for New Zealand's new GI (wines and spirits) regulation which came into effect this year.
The reason New Zealand is restricting its TRIPS alignment to wines and spirits is because the dairy and meat industries are resisting any acceptance of 21st century marketing concepts in their trade activities, and their lobby in Wellington remains strong.
But, for wine, the plan is simple: work out the boundaries that define your regions and get on with selling these to the international wine market.
John Barker, policy manager of New Zealand Winegrowers, is convinced it is the right way for local wine to go.
"I think for us as an industry this is a great opportunity. It opens up the prospect of increasing the value of our wine internationally. It is also an opportunity for people to sit down and crystallise their thinking, to make some concrete decisions about the future."
So is that a decision about whether to be a commodity industry or a prestige trader? Martin is clear which he prefers.
"For us down here, we have to maximise our returns internationally," he says. "It is important the further up the quality/price pyramid you go, the more individual and specific the identity of the source becomes. We need to get on with it."
Not that he is convinced that the stringent French system he knows so well is a suitable model for New Zealand to pursue.
"Philosophically, the problem for us is the Old World example has grown up slowly through practice and history," he says.
"It is impossible in most cases to separate the human influence from the geography.
"It is not just about soil and climate, but also about the varieties you chose to grow, whether you irrigate or not, how you prune, and how you process the grapes in the winery.
"You can't just make up rules about how to do these things, you have to experiment and learn by experience.
"The physical properties of the place are important, but more important is how human management adapts to them."
NZ Winegrowers is actively seeking a positive stance from all local winegrowing regions so that the definitions of the boundaries that will define their future identity are the result of consensus and experience.
"We have done a huge amount of work on this," Barker says. "It is a difficult situation to manage. We cannot come down to a regional group and tell them what to do, but we need to make sure that Maori place names, geographic names and boundaries are reflective of common practice and local attitudes."
Martinborough in the southern Wairarapa has already completed its GI identity process, with a map and local consensus about where the boundaries are - the only region here to have done so and one which others are sure to follow.
"We needed a boundary but we didn't start by drawing lines. It had to make sense to somebody looking from the outside because that is who our customers are," says says Roger Parkinson, who was actively involved in initiating the Martinborough scheme. "If we say we are a certain place, we have to be able to tell them where our place is. So if we know where it is, then identity is so much easier for our customers.
"In the beginning, we asked all the locals where they thought Martinborough was and, in the end, we didn't really have to change anything. The boundaries drew themselves."
He is equally certain that the definition is of huge value to Martinborough's winemakers.
"People pay for our identity," he says. "So there must be no doubt in anybody's mind what that is."
However, Martin says it is not as simple as drawing boundaries. The company he works for, Winegrowers of Ara, has already identified a geographic area with soil and climate characteristics that he believes will define a wine style. But it will be some time before Ara is a specified winegrowing area in Marlborough.
"When we have some substance to our claim that our wine has a particular character, then registering the Ara GI is a good path for us to go down," he says. "It takes a certain time for characteristics of a place to appear in the wine. It makes the whole marketing purpose easier if you have proof of a certain style, before GI is able to be recognised."
There is good reason for winemakers around the regions to take the process of establishing their geographic identity seriously indeed, for the rewards are great. In the world's most specifically defined winegrowing district, Burgundy, the real estate catch-cry of "location, location, location" is more critical than great reviews and competition trophies.
Just last month, a case of 2000 Romane-Conti - a GI of just 1.8 hectares - sold at auction in New York for US$60,000. That would buy 75 cases of Martinborough's top pinot noir. *
* Keith Stewart is a freelance writer with 38 years' experience of the local wine industry.
