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Raising the barre

Published:  18 January, 2007

The evocation of a wine pirouetting across the palate like a muscular male ballet dancer seemed somewhat incongruous at a wine event hosted by the plain-speaking Kiwis. But this purple prose was from no New Zealander - rather, it was one of the international Pinotphiles that made up more than half the delegates in attendance, the wine in question was from Burgundy, and the setting was a keynote session on The Human Element of Terroir'.

These diverse cultures collided last month in Queenstown at the 5th Central Otago Pinot Noir Celebration. The result was dynamic debate both on and off centre stage about the joys and pains of producing Pinot Noir in a young and marginal wine region on a backdrop of tastings of the variety from Central Otago and beyond. It also highlighted just how seriously the region's wine growers take their Pinot: from raising its quality through dialogue with each other, winemakers in key Pinot-growing regions and wine critics; to its promotion to

wine lovers worldwide on the eve of a harvest that's likely

to be more than double that of the previous year.

Keynote speaker Allen Meadows, aka the Burghound, sniffed around the general concept of terroir before a tasting of Clos de Vougeots that elicited some straight talking from the Kiwi contingent. A more extracted example provoked a blunt bashing from Quartz Reef's Rudi Bauer, while a whiff of Brettanomyces from another caused Amisfield's Jeff Sinnot to ponder whether not cleaning one's barrels could be considered an aspect of terroir.

Meadows's take on Otago was that as vines age and with the understanding of the quality of different parcels, Central Otago will ultimately make better wines [than now]'. However, this should not be its goal - rather, to make something that's distinctly Central Otago', thinks Meadows.

In agreement is Dean Shaw, who - as winemaker for the region's main contract winery, Central Otago Wine Company, which processes up to 30% of the region's wines - is responsible for a significant proportion of the region's Pinots. He says his aim is to create a wine that best expresses the fruit he's working with in a given vintage, and with characteristic candour, he admits that these are certainly not always the best wines he could produce.

Growing grapes in the world's most southerly wine region may provide the possibility of future greatness, but it also means considerable vintage variation. Recent years are no exception: the lighter Pinots of the small 2004 vintage were a product of a cool summer sandwiched between frosts, while barrel samples of the even lower-volume 2005 vintage indicate that tiny yields and a warm end to the season should translate into ripe and concentrated Pinots.

Terroir might have been the theme of the event's keynote speeches, but Central Otago is just starting to explore its own. It's exciting - there are no boundaries and the possibility of making history,' enthuses long-time Central Otago winemaker and Bendigo pioneer Bauer, who's found Pinots from his Bendigo vineyard are turning out to be more powerful and masculine than the more delicate feminine style he prefers -

but that's part of the thrill.

Central has developed a core Pinot style - one of pure, soft cherry fruit fused with spice - but there's plenty of variation on this theme emerging from its diverse subregions. The individual Pinots made by Shaw, who takes a non-interventionalist approach to winemaking, provides just one illustration of how terroir is driving difference, rather than the stamp of the winemaker.

Some Central Otagans, often limited by owning just one vineyard, are sticking to single-site wines. However, there has been a movement towards blending from across the region to spread risk and gain greater consistency - an approach particularly relevant to a subregion like Gibbston, whose elegant racy Pinots can be some of the best in warm years and then virtually non-existent in frost-affected ones. The public want consistency, and blending fruit from our vineyards in different subregions allows us to achieve this,' thinks Peregrine's Greg Hay, who reports no resistance to his Pinot being a regional blend in most years.

One cannot help being impressed by the region's dramatic vineyards, but it's the human element in Central Otago that holds the key to unlocking its Pinots' potential. The region's predominantly young but widely travelled and tasted winemakers and viticulturalists are starting to unravel the mysteries of the region's terroir, allowing it to be expressed through increasingly sensitive handling. They may be close to making that grand jet to greatness, but avoiding such grandiloquence, I'd prefer to say that, for now, they're making some good stuff.