New Zealand wine is booming.
Besides a small dip in 2024 (when volumes went backwards by 12%), export volumes of Kiwi wines have increased by over 50% over the past decade (a rise of over 100 million litres of wine).
That’s a huge increase in what is otherwise a wildly competitive global wine market. However, export volumes to Australia over the last decade have remained ostensibly flat, with export values (based on the price per litre) actually decreasing.
With limited perceived opportunities for growth, Kiwi winemakers are understandably investing less time in the Australian market than they once did. Why bother when the grass is greener in expanding US, UK or alternative markets?
What a pleasure it was then to have a trend-bucking contingent of high-quality New Zealand winemakers in town this week, pouring a selection of Kiwi wines that we just don’t regularly see.
The uniting force behind this group was Australian importer and distributor Saint Wine, with founder Adam Partington convincing a squad of small (or smallish) NZ producers to cross the ditch. There were some very new things for Australia too, with former Dry River winemaker Wilco Lam showing his new Oraterra wines, Takahiro Koyama with the nascent Taka K lineup and Poppy Hammond with her Poppies aromatics.
You can stir in James Dicey (Dicey), Rachel and Will from Novum, next-generation Judd family member Alex Judd from Greywacke for some diversity.
Good stuff.
If anything, the challenge with this lineup of Kiwi charisma was not about wine quality, but the vagaries of vintage. 2023 was infamously touched by Cyclone Gabrielle in February, which caused widespread chaos in the North Island, with Hawke’s Bay and Auckland especially hard hit. Martinborough had a pretty challenging time of it, too, although the storms largely sailed on past Marlborough. That said, 2022 in Marlborough was a hard vintage too, so it must have been a relief that the cyclone buggered off. Interestingly, Central Otago was bone dry for most of the 2023 vintage, and although the end of harvest was a mixed bag, with snow, frosts, rain, and unpredictability, it will likely go down as a goodun’.
Who’d want to be a grapegrower, right?
Given the winemaking talent in the room, however, it’s probably unsurprising that the wines generally rose far above any vintage. These are largely small-volume, handmade, interesting NZ drinks with personality by the bucketload (and likely the demand to match). More please.
Let’s take a look:
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