[March 21, 2023]

Home Block Heroes - Pioneers of Marlborough

Many of you will know the great wines of this terrific Kiwi estate, their Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in particular. They were the property that catapulted New Zealand Savvy onto the world stage in 1986. The catalyst? Taking a stand at our London Wine Festival and sweeping the board. They wowed both pros and customers alike. It made newspaper headlines and was raised in the New Zealand Parliament the next day.

We have been buying from this estate ever since – Jane and the team are like family. The winemaker is her older nephew, James, who, early in his career, joined us at Château La Clarière and also our winemaking headquarters in Bordeaux, Le Chai au Quai, for a few vintages. Judging by the impressive haul of awards they gain each year and the quality of the wines, he has a lot of talent. Jane’s younger nephew Edward is now General Manager and her brother-in-law, Peter, affectionately known as Big Mac, is the consultant director. You’ll often meet Jane’s sister, Libby, at our Wine Festival too – an ambassador for the cellar.

The property was founded in 1979 by the late Ernie Hunter, with just a small vineyard around the winery. This is the original Home Block Vineyard, from which the Sauvignon Blanc, just 3 hectares, is taken to make the fabulous Vineyard Partner white – Home Block Sauvignon Blanc. It’s an exceptional ‘Savvy’ – intense, with crisp apple and grapefruit notes, lightly tropical, with mineral elegance. It took James and the team a few years of experimentation to get the ‘recipe’ right, but Jane and James are delighted to be able to make an individual bottling of their Home Block for their keen supporters, Vineyard Partners, to snap up each year.

The 2022 was released just before Christmas. “It was another good vintage with similar weather conditions to 2021, bar the dreadful frost of that year,” Jane told us, but “ultimately a challenging vintage, which required unwavering attention in the vineyard.” Unlike previous drought years, it had started wet, so water levels were topped up. Flowering was successful and there was a good yield (unlike 2021). It was a condensed vintage – it took just 10 days to bring in all the fruit. Hard enough in normal years, but unable to access young winemakers from abroad, like they normally would, and with Omicron infections at their height, they pulled in anyone that was willing. It was tough.

The wine has turned out well: “The 2022 vintage shows ripe tropical fruit character and excellent concentration and balance. We give the wine four months on lees, but no bâtonnage, to lend it creamy weight without taking away from that mineral elegance,” Jane explained. “We don’t lack flavour in Marlborough, so, in fact, we try to turn it down a bit, but we still aim to harness the tropical fruit, and avoid a herbal green, grassy style.” Their vines are all planted in the Wairau Valley, which tends to lend more tropical notes anyway, while opening up the canopy (the leaves) helps to keep air circulating and the grapes healthy.

Shaping Marlborough's future

The property now has 150 hectares of vines, but when Ernie started, it was just the original 25 hectares. He was experimenting ... seeing which grape worked best. As the world’s finest wines at the time were all grand Bordeaux, he tried to emulate them and planted both Cabernets and Merlot, plus Müller Thurgau as a nod to Germany, and Chardonnay. Luckily he also trialled a few rows of Sauvignon Blanc, which obviously proved the best ... and the rest is history.

Latest news is James has just been elected onto the official Wine Marlborough Board – one of just 10 representatives, who will help decide the future of the region. That was a real feather in the cap, along with the winery reaching the finalists in WineState Magazine’s New Zealand Winemaker of the Year and Winery of the Year in 2022. “We didn’t win but getting into the final five in each category was a great result,” said James.

The wine’s stellar rise doesn’t stop. We want everyone to know about their true cut-above Sauvignon Blancs, especially the superb Home Block, but also their other great successes ... the highly awarded MiruMiru fizz, aged 18 months on lees, plus their Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Riesling, just for starters.

Severe weather in 2022

The northern tip of the South Island was hit by severe flooding in late August. You may have seen it in the news. Westport and Nelson were particularly badly affected, but Hunter’s still found themselves under nearly a metre of water in the cellar. There was some serious pumping out, but they were extremely fortunate that no tanks of wine were lost. At this time of the year – early spring – severe rains do minimal damage to the vines, but as Jane said, they were lucky: “Many are worse off than us with water through their houses, and vineyards flooded to the tops of trellis posts, so we count our blessings.”

The urgency for sustainability and biodiversity is clear. Hunter’s is on the case, with a number of projects on the go. One is the restoration of a wetland area on their Delta vineyard. Stage one was to plant 600 native plants that included Swamp Sedge, ToeToe, Cabbage Tree, Manuka, Swamp Flax, Mingmingi, Lowland Ribbon Wood and Kowhai. Stage 2, just completed, saw the planting of another 600, similar to the above, with the addition of WiggyWiggy! Jane explained, “We can now see the pond which was hidden from view before we started. In the next 12-18 months we plan to further expose the pond and probably ruffle the feathers of the few ducks, who seem to have made it their home.” Stage 3 will see 400 more plants bedded there

Beyond the wetland

The team are trying out new regenerative soil practices. They have moved away from grassing between the vines to a more biodiverse sward. That includes planting clovers, legumes and alyssum – just like Jane’s father, a grape grower himself, did in South Australia in the 1960s, as she was growing up. This will help to feed nitrogen and other nutrients back into the soil. In 2021, they also acquired a trial, 13-hectare vineyard in the Waihopai Valley. It was converted to organic in 2009 and the team will continue to tend it with the same exacting standards to retain its current organic status. Jane has always said that organic viticulture is no silver bullet, but “we are learning many new techniques which we can play out across our other vineyards.”

Hunter’s award-winning native garden, which you’ll see if you visit, also plays its part. There has always been a garden at Hunter’s – Jane is a trained horticulturalist – but it used to be all lavender and roses, plants which are thirsty for water. So, in 2002, with the help of a specialist in native New Zealand gardens, Jane completely redesigned the area and planted it with 4,000 native species. “Now some 20 years later, we have an award-winning garden with towering trees and flax, that serve to take up the treated wastewater of the winery ... so adding to our sustainability story.”

Olive groves in New Zealand

If you visit Hunter’s estate – and as a Vineyard Partner, you would be warmly welcomed – you will also see their small plantation of olive trees. Jane’s late mother lived in Umbria with her stepfather and were the proud owners of a small grove of olive trees. Inspired by this, Jane decided to give it a go in Marlborough. They have only a handful of trees – Barnea, Frantoio and Koreneki varieties – and make just 500 bottles of oil a year, which are snapped up at the cellar door. June is the harvest month for olives and the quality, Jane says, always reaches Extra Virgin. The olive mill is just 5 kilometres from the winery, so nice and local. They recently bought a new, Italian-made harvester too, which has made the job much easier and the team very happy!

Hunter’s Vineyard Partners can look forward to delivery of the 2022 Home Block Sauvignon Blanc just before Christmas. The vintage proved a welcome change from the previous few drought years, with plentiful rain in spring. The weather during fruit set, however, turned dry and excellent and, with great vigilance in the vineyard, the team have produced an intensely flavoured, vibrant Home Block white. A great choice with seafood or goat’s cheese dishes.