The Man from the land

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The Man from the land - Neal Martin

NZ7: TerraVin - The Man From the Land
Marlborough: just a sea of commercial Sauvignon Blanc, yeah?
No, my friend.
Well, kind of, I mean Marlborough still produces 87% of all domestic Sauvignon Blanc since the first vines were planted in 1976, after which it expanded to 4,516ha by 2003 and a predicted 12,336ha by 2010. As I was driven into the Wairau Valley by Neudorf's John Kavanagh, I witnessed a vast swathe of wooden stakes, lying supine upon a newborn vineyard in the northern peripheries of Marlborough. "More Sauvignon Blanc to quench the thirst of the English," I thought, pondering exactly how many times I would be writing "gooseberry" or "cat's pee" over the ensuing days.

(Looking northwards to the mountains from the Wairau Valley in Marlborough. Do they remind you of anything, any wine label perchance?)
Although I encountered many unexciting, if commercially successful Sauvignon Blancs, there is a cluster of growers who are making some outstanding wines and thankfully produce an array of grape varietals that exploit the terroir of the region. The ubiquity of Sauvignon (aka the "Savalanchce") might lead you assume that Marlborough is one monotonous geological plain but that is far from the truth, for aside from the region divided into the Wairau and the cooler Awatere Valleys, each with their own nuances, the Wairau has a complex mosaic of soils thanks to the deposits of the meandering river, whose tendency to wander has left traces over time.
I wrote up the leading Marlborough producers in The Wine Advocate: Mahi, Seresin, Steve Bird Winery and others. But one that intrigued me was "TerraVin". The name sounds a little incongruous compared to others that often have Maori origins or simply named after the owner, in this case was Mick Eaton, who picked me up in his mud-caked 4x4, son (and heir?) perched on the back seat.
Mike Eaton must have one of the longest careers in Marlborough's wine industry, having planted the first vines for Montana in their Brancott Vineyard for $2.90/hour. Spending so many hours working the land, there cannot be many who understand the terroir better than him. He journeyed to France and in particular Burgundy and Jura before returning to his homeland with plans to purchase his own land. In 1991 he not only married his wife Jo, but established the Clayvin Vineyard whose fruit was sold to Fromm. This relationship continued until 1998, when Clayvin was sold to Fromm and so Mike's search for a new potential vineyard began once more. Finally he purchased 12-hectares in the Omaka Valley: a slope ranging between 105m and 160m at a north-facing 12-17 degree angle and it was christened "TerraVin". Using his experience in Burgundy, he planted the vines at a high density of 5,000 per hectare, trained the vines double-Guyot and practices leaf-thinning and fruit-thinning during the growing season to limit yields.
The story of how Dijon clones ended up in Marlborough is fascinating and gives an insight into the early history of the region from a man who was there at the frontline.
"The oldest vines of any clonal significance here in Marlborough were planted in 1996 at Clayvin, Fromm and Isabel and just a couple of hundred vines went to the likes of Cloudy Bay. Martinborough Vineyards and Martinborough Vine Improvement Group (MVIG) had brought in the Dijon clones to New Zealand and closely kept them within Martinborough. Then by pure accident one of the nurseries that they had used for grafting sent out a surplus list to the general industry so Haatch Kalberer (of Fromm) and I were quicker than pigs to the mud to order and pay for the vines! Subsequently the Martinborough Vine Improvement Group realized what had happened and asked the nursery to withdraw the vines but we had already paid for them so there was little that could be done, so the first Dijon clones ended up here in Marlborough and that was just 1996. We spent the next three years multiplying the material up to increase the plantings of those clones."
"Any earlier vines planted were the Pommard clones that had come through Davis UCD5 and UCD 6 and these were only planted from the early 90s onward with Fromm, Clayvin, Isabel and a few other small plantings at Cloudy Bay. All of this became of no consequence anyway. From 1996 almost all previous plantings had to be replaced due to the ravages of phylloxera, but on the good side it gave everyone an opportunity to plant much better clones."
"Prior to 1991 almost all planting was of the Bactobel clone well suited to bubbly but horrid for red wine and at the time the only clone even attempted to be made into red wine was the Swiss clone AM10/5 and 2/10 even this was planted sparingly. Mind you, at that time when Fromm, Isabel and the handful of us that planted red wine in "Sauvignon Mecca", it was tantamount to overt Heresy and God forbid planting high density and then with planting Clayvin on the Hillside! "My goodness what are they thinking red in Marlborough? How absurd! On a hillside? Why, when our flat blocks are world famous and how about all that extra cost with posts and plants, plus we cannot get the Massey Ferguson farm tractor down those rows."
"Still that was only 16 or 17 years ago and things have moved so quickly since then, but even the oldest Pinot vines at 17-years old are still only just regarded as adolescent in a Burgundian sensibility. So we are still only beginning the journey of Pinot Noir here in Marlborough with most of our vines planted post 2000. Even our own TerraVin was only planted in 1999 and the vines are only just starting to feel as if they are maturing."
I asked Mike via e-mail about the background to TerraVin and his philosophy towards winemaking.
"We sold a sizable portion of our Pinot Noir most of it newer plantings that were for planned growth and a block of Chardonnay on the top hill terrace, also some of the Cabernet which will leave that "J" Merlot dominant. The Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon we buy in, I never believed in paying per ton for fruit so I pay the grower (who has been growing grapes for 30 years) per acre and I take on all aspects of the viticulture so when he sees all the fruit hitting the ground, he does not have heart palpitations. This wine (the Sauvignon Blanc blend Te Ahu) we will make with fruit sourced in this manner, while the Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris will continue to be made from our home block."
"We originally had 12-hectares and have sold 8-hectares, some of which was planted in Chardonnay. Spy Valley intend using the fruit for their premium Envoy label. So in essence we will continue to make the same range but rather than expanding, we will continue to stay small and focus instead on continuing to deliver something that truly reflects this small piece of land and our hard work without making so much that I never see my family because I am travelling the globe promoting it."
"The challenge actually for me now is to work out a way of compromising between the herbaceousness and quite straight forward style of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that everyone seems to love and the more ripe tropical and complex flavours that as a viticulturist I enjoy producing. The problem is that I will always try and achieve balance on the vine and this simply is very difficult to achieve on Sauvignon Blanc over 10 ton/ha and most Marlborough producers of more commercial style Sauvignon Blancs run crops closer to the 15ton/ha (and good on them if they can do that and find a market for it, the paradox being that the methoxepyrezine characters so sought after in the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc are actually much higher and more pungent from these heavier yields giving the impression that they are in fact more concentrated)."
"My conundrum is that in order to produce this herbaceous style fruit is often harvested before it is completely ripe and from shaded over cropped canopies so how do you reconcile doing that when you are a perfectionist? This is of course why the likes of Haatch Kalberer choose not to make the wines, I however regard it more of a challenge to somehow find a balance between that need to please the consumer but at the same time there must be a way to introduce them to a more ripe complex style that still keeps in touch with the fruit purity Marlborough is renowned for. We got off on a bit of a wrong track going the Semillon/funky wild ferment direction and forgot that the sommeliers and public still had an expectation of why they wanted a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and we were too far outside that square in a commercial sense. So we will stick to pushing the boundaries in style with the Te Ahu and also try to do something special with a more straightforward Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc as well. There is always a challenge out there somewhere. Maybe it is Pinot Blanc!!!"
Many thanks for Mike for spending the time to give me such an insight to the origins of Marlborough and TerraVin. He seems content to remain small and focus upon quality and the results of his meticulous winemaking, coupled with his years familiarising himself with the land, are tangible in his outstanding wines. For detailed information on TerraVin, visit www.terravin.co.nz.

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