TIPPING POINT
Wine is a symbol of the good times, but we enjoy it in times of stress, too. The challenges of the past year have seen many Kiwis reaching for a glass or two of wine – and we are not the only ones.
Sales of New Zealand wine in its key export markets – the UK, US and Australia – are booming. “The planet decided Covid-19 wasn’t supposed to be endured in a state of sobriety,” declared winemaker Steve Bird late last-year, “so people were locked down at home and they were drinking wine like there was no tomorrow.”
The value of our annual exports recently hit $2 billion. Every second, about 80 glasses of our wine are consumed around the world.
On the surface, things are rosy in the wine industry. The value of our annual exports recently hit $2 billion. Every second, about 80 glasses of New Zealand wine are consumed around the world.
In 2020, a record number of wine producers (more than 700) handled the country’s biggest-ever grape crop, harvested from nearly 40,000ha of vines. After a notably dry summer and autumn, the new season’s wines are brimful of promise. And if you scan the opening pages of New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Report 2020, it’s equally easy to form a positive view. New Zealand accounts for just 1.2% of the world’s production, but wine is now our fifth-largest export ‘good’.
Some key advances in the industry are worth highlighting. The quality of New Zealand wine has never been better. Commitment to organic viticulture is expanding gradually and mature, 15- to 25-year-old vines are increasingly the norm.
Many grape growers and winemakers have now been working on the same site for decades. As one winegrower put it recently: “The whole industry is significantly more mature, even compared with five years ago. We’re just getting started on wine style and quality.”
But things are complicated. Villa Maria declared recently that its sales of sauvignon blanc in the US are “rocketing, and at far better prices than we get in the UK”. At the same time, it is phasing out some of its most prestigious Hawke’s Bay chardonnays and reds under the Vidal brand. And although the
