The Wine, in Brief
Hawke’s Bay is characterized, principally, by extreme diversity. No region has a wider variety of soil types, from rich, alluvial silt and loams (wholly inappropriate for winegrowing) to deep, gravelly soils, and very few regions in New Zealand share the same broad range in mesoclimates. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay ripen slowly in the interior and on the cool slopes of Havelock North, while Merlot and Syrah grow reliably on the warmer soils surrounding Hastings and Napier. Cabernet Sauvignon struggles in the cooler years. Remarkably, harvest dates for Chardonnay vary by more than a month across the region, while Te Mata Estate’s best and worst sites for Cabernet Sauvignon lie less than a half-mile apart.
Hawke’s Bay has always been the Kiwi standard-bearer for juicy, finely tannic claret-style reds, typically Merlot-dominant, but Syrah is increasingly successful. Four out of five of the country’s Syrah vines are planted in Hawke’s Bay, where it ripens reliably and produces wines with fruit, spice, and gamey aromas that balance acidity with tannin.
Regrettably, the wine styles that Hawke’s Bay is best know for – Chardonnay, Bordeaux blends, and Syrah – are also produced to a high standard, at an equally low cost, in many other regions around the world. Accordingly, Hawke’s Bay is more reliant on the domestic market than any other New Zealand wine region, and is vulnerable to cheap imports from Australia.
Location
The region of Hawke’s Bay centers on the towns of Hastings and Napier, which lie on the south side of Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Vineyards generally follow the course of Hawke’s Bay’s three major river systems – the Tukituki River, which flows north into Hawke’s Bay, and the Ngaruroro and Tutaekuri rivers, which flow east from the mountains to Hawke’s Bay. The Ruahine and Kaweka mountain ranges to the east shelter Hawke’s Bay.
Historical Background
Father Lampila, a French Marist missionary, planted the first grapes in Hawke’s Bay in 1851 at the Mission Vineyards in Pakowhai. He transferred to Greenmeadows in 1897, where today Mission Vineyards holds the distinction of being New Zealand’s oldest continuously operating winery.
Two other vineyard sites were planted at the turn of the twentieth century that became synonymous with New Zealand’s finest, earliest Bordeaux reds. In 1892, Bernard Chambers planted the Coleraine Vineyard on the north-facing limestone slopes of Te Mata Peak, on land owned by his family since 1842. By 1909, Te Mata Vineyard was the largest winery in the country, with a unique focus on dry table wines, rather than the more popular fortified wines. In 1897 Bartholomew Steinmetz planted the original Church Road vineyard. Steinmetz returned to his native Luxembourg in the 1920s, leaving the vineyard and winery in the hands of 19-year old Tom McDonald, who released New Zealand’s first commercial Cabernet Sauvignon in 1949, and continued to make New Zealand’s finest Bordeaux reds through the 1960s.
Hawke’s Bay has since found a new standard bearer in the Gimblett Gravels. The stony soils of the Gimblett Gravels were revealed in 1867 when a flood changed the course of the Ngaruroro River, but the region remained unplanted, even unused entirely, until the late 1970s. In 1981, Chris Pask planted the first Bordeaux reds on the Gravels – Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. Dr. Alan Limmer followed suit in 1982, planting Cabernet Sauvignon and one row of Syrah (the first Syrah plantings in New Zealand) for his newly founded winery, Stonecroft. The Gimblett Gravels were bought up at a rapid pace in the 1990s, and in 2001 the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers Association was established to protect the reputation of the region by guaranteeing the provenance of each bottle bearing the association’s mark.
Climate and Weather
Hawke’s Bay may be one of New Zealand’s sunniest, warmest regions, but it’s moderate maritime climate is still relatively cool by international standards, especially for Bordeaux reds – Hawke’s Bay is cooler even than Bordeaux. The region experiences 1476 growing degree-days, and receives 741 mm of rain per year. The influence of Hawke’s Bay moderates the daytime highs and the nighttime lows, and the Ruahine and Kaweka Ranges to the east protect the region from windy and rainy westerlies throughout the year. What rain does reach the region must either come from the south on a cold front, or from the north on the misty tail-end of a tropical cyclone. Water supply is not a problem for the region; the underground aquifer that feeds the Ngaruroro River supplies water for all viticultural needs.
The Gimblett Gravels are warmer than other areas of Hawke’s Bay by 2°C to 3°C, on average. Significantly, these higher temperatures are reached earlier in the morning and last longer into the night. The belowground soil temperatures can be as much as 5°C warmer, especially in the spring, as the Gravels dry out more quickly than other areas.
Soils and Topography
Hawke’s Bay has a wide variety of soil types, as befitting a large region crossed by three rivers. The Heretaunga Plains that surround Hastings, where most of the region’s grapes are grown, is an alluvial flood plain characterized by silt, loam, and gravel.
The Gimblett Gravels were laid down over thousands of years by the Ngaruroro River, which transported the rocks – compacted bits of sand called greywacke that were formed under pressure on the ocean floor and subsequently uplifted by geological forces, before being broken off high in the central mountains by the forces of nature – to Hawke’s Bay. Heavier bits of sediment, rocks and sand, were dumped as the river’s velocity slowed around Roy’s Hill, while the lighter sediments, silts and clays, stayed in suspension longer and were dumped into the Heretaunga Plains. The Gimblett Gravels is 800 hectares of deep gravels with 10-40 cm of topsoil and thin lenses of sand, silt, and clay at various depths. The Gravels are extremely free draining; viticulture would not be possible without irrigation.
Grape Varieties
Hawke’s Bay is New Zealand’s second-largest growing region, with a producing area of 4,841 hectares (14% of the national producing area) across 241 vineyards, giving an average vineyard size of 19.3 hectares. Hawke’s Bay is planted primarily to Merlot (21%), Sauvignon Blanc (21%), and Chardonnay (21%), with significant plantings of Pinot Gris (10%), Pinot Noir (7%), Syrah (6%), and Cabernet Sauvignon (5%).
Sources
Michael Cooper, Wine Atlas of New Zealand (Auckland, NZ: Hodder Moa, 2008).
Caroline Courtney, Wine in New Zealand (Auckland: Godwit, 2003).
Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, The World Atlas of Wine Sixth Edition (London: Octopus Publishing Group, 2007).
Kevin Judd and Bob Campbell, The Landscape of New Zealand Wine (Nelson, NZ: Craig Potton Publishing, 2009).
Gimblett Gravels Winegrower’s Association, http://www.gimblettgravels.com.
New Zealand Winegrowers, “Vineyard Register Report 2012,” http://www.wineinf.nzwine.com.
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