HOW GRAPES GOT TO NEW ZEALAND

I wanted to post another of Robin Ransom's good essays in my last post but I forgot. So, here is some really good info to give you some background how good wines got to NZ and why they seem to do well here.

LOCAL MATTERS CONTRIBUTION – AUGUST 2007

From Noah to Matakana – A 6000 Year Wine Trail

Robin Ransom

There are hundreds of grape varieties which belong to the world’s only true winegrape species vitis vinifera. It is thought to have originated south of the Black Sea, in the region now known as Georgia and Armenia. This area is very close to Mount Ararat, where, according to the Bible, Noah’s Ark came to rest, and where Noah apparently settled, planted the first vineyard, and became the first winemaker. The earliest scientific evidence for cultivation of vinifera dates back at least 6000 years, and the earliest evidence of deliberate winemaking dates to about 5500 years ago.

In the following few thousand years vitis vinifera spread all over the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Europe. In the course of this vast dispersal in space and time, genetic variation would inevitably occur through natural selection. Human intervention in this process would have accelerated it, so that in local areas certain variants came to be valued more than others, and hence the eventual development of the hundreds, maybe thousands of region-specific varieties of vitis vinifera we are now blessed with.

Most of the varieties grown in New Zealand today originated in France. Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley and Bordeaux; Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Burgundy and Champagne; Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc from Bordeaux; Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer from Alsace and Germany; Syrah (Shiraz) from the Rhone Valley. As time goes on the range of varieties and countries of origin is extending – Sangiovese and Montepulciano from Italy for example.

Being freed from many of Europe’s restrictive rules and regulations about what can be grown where has ensured a pioneering experimentation in New Zealand, which has demonstrated the great versatility of vitis vinifera varieties and undone many myths in the process. For example the most widely planted variety in the warm, moist, windy, maritime-influenced climate of Matakana is pinot gris, and general opinion is that it does rather well here. Yet this variety originated in the cool, dry, continental climate of Eastern France.

Despite the fact that the varieties we work with have been transplanted into thoroughly foreign soils and climates, the consensus seems to be that New Zealand wines have a uniqueness in their fresh, clean fruitiness which gives them a universal appeal, recognizable but also quite different from their illustrious European ancestors.

LOC

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More soon

Dr JIM