Visiting
New Zealand's
wine regions
Part 7: Hawkes Bay and the Gimblett Gravels
The Gimblett Gravels winegrowing
area in Hawkes Bay
After a rapid journey back from Gisborne, via some
sharply winding roads, I arrived in Hawkes Bay, where I was due to
meet with Rod Easthope at Craggy Range. But before we discuss
Craggy Range, which is widely acknowledged to be New Zealand’s
star winery, it’s worth saying something about Hawkes Bay in
general, as well as its hugely important Gimblett Gravels terroir.
As a wine region, Hawkes Bay contrasts sharply with
Marlborough. For a start, it’s much older, first planted by
missionaries in the mid-19th century, and then undergoing
substantial development during the 1960s and 70s. Indeed, until
recently, this was the heart of the New Zealand wine scene. It’s
still New Zealand’s key red wine region, but in terms of size
and reknown, Marlborough has now overtaken it. It is also more
diffuse: you don’t really get wall-to-wall vineyard plantings
here. Instead, the vineyards are spread out over quite a large
area, surrounding the two larger towns in the region, Hastings and
Napier. And while it’s not an ugly place, it’s not terribly
pretty, either.
Hawkes
Bay
The key to understanding Hawkes Bay is getting to grips
with the soil. Terroir matters here. For many years people were
attempting to grow red grapes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, in the
wrong places. Simplistically put, there are two major soil types
here: rich, alluvial loams, and river gravels. Stick a Cabernet
Sauvignon vine in loamy soil, and it will flourish, producing a
dense, rich canopy. But the grapes will be rubbish: the vigorous
vine will keep growing past veraison (the stage where the berries
change in colour) and as a consequence, won’t ripen the grapes
properly. The result: thin red wines with a distinct greenness.
Stick them in the less fertile gravels, and vigour will be
controlled, and you’ll have a chance to get good, ripe grapes.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than this.
There are more than just two soil types in Hawkes Bay – for
example, there’s the limestone in Havelock North, which has
helped Te Mata make some very smart reds, particularly in warmer
years. But the message is that the key to making top quality reds
in Hawkes Bay is understanding terroir, and with the wide range of
soil types this is quite complicated. There are also complex
climatic variations, with factors such as coastal breezes mixing
things up a bit, causing small but significant temperature
variations among different sites.
Almost bizarrely, Hawkes Bay’s most important
terroir, the Gimblett Gravels, went unplanted until the 1980s, and
as recently as 1991 just 20 hectares of vines were planted there.
Now, however, it is the most important patch of ground in New
Zealand for making red wines, and it’s a wonderful illustration
of how the French concept of terroir matters even in the new
world.
A short film showing the Gimblett
Gravels
The gravels were laid down by a river, The Ngaruroro,
which changed its course after a flood in 1867. Located northwest
of Hastings, the whole area is a sizeable 800 hectares, almost all
of which is now planted with vines. Some 30 years ago, however,
this now extremely valuable land was little regarded: it was not
much good for grazing sheep, and nothing would grow here. The
first person to think about growing vines here was Chris Pask, who
bought and planted a small block in 1981. Shortly afterwards, he
was joined by other pioneers: David Irving, Gavin Yortt, John
Kenderdine and Alan Limmer. But this was pretty small scale, and
it wasn’t until the early 1990s that larger plantings were made
by the likes of Babich and Villa Maria.
However, the Gimblett Gravels faced a serious problem.
In 1988 150 hectares of this prime vineyard land was bought by a
concrete company that wanted to extract the gravel to make roads
with. A campaign against this planning application was started by
a coalition of growers, who in the end persuaded the council that
the best use of this land was for establishing world class
vineyards. Phew!
So what makes it so special? First of all, the gravels
are free draining and have low fertility, which results in low
vigour vineyards where the vines concentrate their efforts on
ripening fruit rather than producing lush vegetation. Second, the
temperatures here are a vital couple of degrees higher than other
parts of Hawkes Bay, as a result of the gravelly soils acting as a
sort of thermal blanket, warming up and then radiating heat, as
well as the shelter the location enjoys from the coastal breezes.
Because the soils are so free-draining, it isn’t
possible to establish vineyards here without irrigation, and while
established vineyards can be managed with just a little judicious
watering, viticulture here isn’t possible without any irrigation
at all. Thus we have an interesting example of a world class
terroir, where some human input in the form of irrigation is an
essential feature of this terroir.
Syrah,
Craggy Range, Gimblett Gravels
But, looking at this from a slightly different
perspective, the thing that makes the Gimblett Gravels so special
is the quality of wine produced here. The focus is on Bordeaux
varieties, principally Merlot, but also Cabernet Sauvignon, and a
bit of Malbec and Cabernet Franc. The results are fantastic.
Syrah, however, is also producing some really exciting results,
even though there isn’t all that much of it. Gimblett is mainly
red wine territory, but some Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are
grown.
The Gimblett Gravels are important, too, because this
is the only new world wine region whose boundaries are demarcated
solely by soil type. [I guess Coonawarra comes close, but its
boundaries aren’t as strictly governed by the famous terra rossa
over limestone soil the region is famous for.]