Wine: Tireless innovators put Gisborne ahead

Judging at the second annual Gisborne Regional Wine Awards last week was a real eye-opener.

First, if the barren, camel-coloured cliffs of Young Nicks Head cutting into the azure-on-turquoise layers of sea and sky don't wow you as your tiny aeroplane buzzes in to land, then the lushness of what lies inland definitely will.

Gisborne is a crazy place where the population swells to tens of thousands of sweaty teenagers who survive on chips and RTDs for three days at New Year.

It's a place where expats come home and introduce themselves as "one of youz" and no matter where you're travelling from it still takes hours to get there.

Crazy weather patterns mean the main road is closed by slips with alarming regularity. And while the rivers still run gold with some of the greatest chardonnays New Zealand has ever known, today Gisborne also produces goosebump-inducing gewurztraminer, magical malbec, viognier with vavoom, arresting arneis and dessert wines to make your heart melt.

It's a tiny place that punches above its weight in terms of attracting pioneering people who put their financial, physical and emotional butts on the line by growing grapes and making wine.

But what many people don't realise is that we simply wouldn't have a wine industry were it not for people like Geoff Thorpe at Riversun Nursery.

Such people tirelessly seek out the best possible clonal material to bring to New Zealand and make available to our growers.

So it was satisfying to see Thorpe, on the night of his 55th birthday, win the Bill Irwin Trophy for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Sir George Fistonich and his team at Villa Maria were rewarded on Friday night for seeing the potential of the region decades ago as the Villa Maria 2010 Reserve Barrique Fermented Gisborne Chardonnay scooped the Supreme Wine of the Show Trophy.

It was a stunning example of its type, powerful, intensely flavoured and incredibly elegant.

Nick Picone, Villa Maria's senior Auckland winemaker, says: "Gisborne chardonnay has a name for being quite big and blowsy but we try to avoid that, keeping finesse and giving it lovely balance that looks good early on but will go on and age well in the bottle."

The grapes are whole-bunch pressed, with about 30 per cent going through indigenous, or wild, fermentation.

All is barrel fermented, using 40 per cent new oak, and 60 per cent of the wine goes through malolactic fermentation. The wine spends 10 months in the barrel with weekly lees stirring.

Villa Maria was also victorious at the inaugural awards last year, with the 2009 reserve chardonnay from the same blocks taking the top award.

For viticulturist Tony Green it's a "real buzz".

"These are excellent vineyards," he says of the Ledger (Patutahi), McDiarmid Hill (Patutahi) and Katoa (Manutuke) vineyards where the grapes are carefully nurtured and handpicked for Villa Maria's black label reserve wine.

"These are cropped at about 3kg a vine, compared to the normal rate of around 6kg a vine, with all the leaf plucking and thinning also done by hand.

"I suppose you could say these vines are fussed over."

Also famous for his fussiness is Nick Nobilo, who won the other gold medal for his wonderful Ashwood Estate 2010 Chardonnay.

Silver medals went to Millton Vineyard's Clos de Ste Anne, Matawhero's Church House 2011, Villa Maria's Reserve Barrique Fermented 2011 and Bushmere Estate 2010.

The team at Millton barely had time to sit down as they were applauded for winning trophies for the highest-awarded winery, the lead viticulturalist (James Millton), the gewurztraminer trophy for their ravishing Riverpoint 2010 and the dessert trophy for their Clos Samuel Viognier 2010, an incredibly unctuous, silky, succulently sweet wine.

During the judging it became apparent that malbec is also a star up-and-comer in the region.

The trophy for top overall red varietals went to another Auckland company charmed by the first place to see the sun.

The Coopers Creek Single Vineyard Gisborne Malbec 2010 is intensely floral and spicy on the nose and deliciously dense in the mouth.

It's a beacon to the potential of this tricky variety.

The day after judging we were treated to examples from Andy Nimmo's Hihi Vineyard and Kirkpatrick Estate Vineyard served with venison and slow-braised beef shortribs prepared by talented young chef Mark Gardner, the new owner of The Colosseum on Riverpoint Rd.

Simon Kirkpatrick is a man of few words who looks and sounds like he'd rather be at the footy club - his uncle is former All Black Ian Kirkpatrick - drinking Speights, but get him talking about his "Kirky" Signature Series Reserve Malbec 2010 ($35) and he goes positively glimmery of the eye and shaky at the knee. Only three barrels of this wine was made and it's a bit confusing because it has 2011 on the front label (in homage to the 2011 Rugby World Cup) yet the wine is actually from 2010. Confusing, yes. Tasty, yes indeed.

It's stunning stuff, with violet, blueberry and powerful spices, it has chunky, youthful tannins and lovely dusty, earthy length of flavour.