It’s just over 20 years since the first Central Otago Pinot Noir was produced. Yet, we are already at the tenth annual Pinot celebration in the region. There has been such hype surrounding the region and so many comparisons to Burgundy that many wine lovers now want to start talking about discovering subregional differences. But isn’t it too much too soon for such a young winegrowing area?
Today, the region’s winemakers even admitted that terroir, a term that means a sense of place, does not yet truly exist in a region where most of the vines are under 10 years old. And it is a welcome relief to witness this acknowledgement. Let’s face it, how many centuries has Burgundy or Bordeaux had to get things right? But we forget this too often.
At the opening seminar of the event, Rudi Bauer, founder and winemaker at Quartz Reef went as far to say, “Stuff terroir. Let’s try to look at a sense of belonging. It’s much closer to our hearts. We want to express ourselves.”
“And it’s alright to make mistakes,” he added.
Matt Dicey of Mt Difficulty agreed: “We are at the beginning of a journey that takes a long time. To use the term terroir implies a level of knowledge and I think we have a long way to go. Terroir is a future technology term.”
Many of the region’s vines are still putting their roots down and the incredibly poor soil is just starting to see some life. Bauer told delegates: “Our soils have never learned to express themselves. But if anything grows guess who takes it? A rabbit. We have to build up organic matter. We are just learning how to build it up.”
Both Bauer and Dicey were backed up by the founding father of the region, the softly spoken Alan Brady. “We had no preconceptions when we started. We wil go on finding out over the next 300 or 500 years. We are all experiencing landmarks along the way. We experience disappointments and high points. We will go on doing that because that is what wine is about.”
Yet, many of us still seek to rush the development of Central Otago and many other New World regions in a game of catch up with the Old World. Isn’t it time we exercised some patience?
