NZ Winegrowers are an active bunch – their members (wine brands) troop around Australia’s East Coast annually presenting a tasting fair.

NZ in a Glass came to Brisbane last Monday with a swag of exhibitors: 71 stands that I counted, 350 industry persons in the afternoon and almost 400 drinking customers for the evening tasting (a good percentage expat Kiwis).

Strangely there was no presence of KEA, the NZ Business organisation although it could have been low key.

But then the latter had their main eye on fundraising for the Christchurch disaster.

Sauvignon blanc was everywhere and well patronised, though exhibitors were very keen to point out their retro-sauvignons (those manipulated during winemaking to conceal mainstream savvy character and replace it with modified taste streams).

However, the fact remains you can never hide a NZ savvy – that’s what made it famous in the first place, that irrepressible nose.

With the sales stats really showing the rise of pinot noir uptake it was a no-brainer that NZ in a Glass would promote this varietal this year and they did so with a seminar.

It was “The Ageability of Marlborough and Central Otago Pinot Noirs” with two typical South Island makers chosen; a big maker in Villa Maria who have a substantial investment in Marlborough and a small maker in Central Otago, Mt Difficulty of Bannockburn.

The wines were worth engaging with; expressive, but the ageability aspect took a back seat, maybe because few of these wines are found on the secondary market (auction). But several vintages were tasted.

Villa Maria’s pinot man Jeremy McKenzie

Jeremy McKenzie, Senior Winemaker for Villa Maria in Marlborough spoke mainly about the sites for pinot in the general region, saying that the luscious gravel riverbed vineyard sites are too vigorous for pinot (that’s where the savvy excels). Even the pinot in this environment is too herbal! www.villamaria.co.nz.

So now the newer pinot vineyards are sited on north-facing clay terraces, slowing the ripening and producing the flavours that Villa wants.

This was demonstrated with three very respectable serial vintages of a Marlborough vineyard blend in the Cellar Selection category.

Villa Maria Cellar Selection Pinot Noir 2006 (USD 45), 14%, +++, from a hot year, has robust colours, cherry, jam, stewed fruit and oak, lots of sweet and sour fruit on the palate, lots of drying tannins.

Villa Maria Cellar Selection Pinot Noir 2007 (USD 45), 14%, ++++, from the vintage of the decade, pure colour, dark and black cherry fruit dominance, oak char, plums and sap, mouth sweet and a little warming with alcohol.

Villa Maria Cellar Selection Pinot Noir 2008 (USD 45), 14%, +++1/2, from a warmer than average year, has perfume, sap, tar, char, lots of whole berry fruit punch, great fruit intensity, fine grained tannin layering, alcohol warming and flavour push.

Michael Herrick, an articulate and well informed fellow, Sales and Marketing Manager of Mt Difficulty presented his company’s wines.

Mt Difficulty’s Michael Herrick on pinot

Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir 2006 (USD 50), 14.5%, +++1/2, from a warm, cool-affected year, has cherry colour, sap complexity, spice, black fruits, then blocky, powerful finish and tannin, big pinot.

Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir 2007 (USD 50), 14%, ++++, snow at flowering, light crop, deep cherry, stylish nose, chunky, taste with talc from minerality, black fruits, lovely balance, honey and perfume, delicious.

Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir 2008 (USD 50) 14%, +++, a lot of fruit dropped, crop reduction, very oak-structured, cedar, sap, tight now, yet mouth sweet, aging slowly, will impress for those who keep it, rich.

Mike Herrick’s take home message was that aging examples develop forest floor aromas at 7-10 years; and now that the early plantings had 20 years of vine age, the best grapes have marvellous flavour intensity. www.mtdifficulty.co.nz

I walked around the tasting displays, discovering some new arrays of wines.

Try three new red wines: Northburn Station Pinot Noir 2008 (USD 42)-from a 30,000 acre sheep station, Man O’War Ironclad Bordeaux Blend 2008 (USD 45),-Waiheke Island near Auckland, merlot dominant and Alpha Domus The Barnstormer Syrah 2010 (USD 27)- from Hawke’s Bay, sexy texture here.

For wines www.nzwineonline.com.au and www.nzwine.com

Over-production in the Australian vineyard has been hovering around for several vintages now, with little movement towards a re-balanced grape economy.

The large-listed wine companies did it quite simply at a board level and signed off for large vineyards to be grubbed out (were the worst performing in the assets portfolio) or offered a series of vineyards for sale (Fosters listed over 30).

Today most of those have been sold to interested parties though some remain on the books and have not been moved along. They would be posing as disease bombs because they would be left without any management, and some vines will die.

Several industry commentators have remarked how slowly the Australian wine map is changing: that re-adjustment of the national vineyard is rather slow, and that production has not really declined despite the ever-present glut.

One has to look at the nature of the over-planting from the start.

Better sites-better wines

All sectors are responsible: managed investment schemes, listed companies, private family wineries, private investment growers, traditional growers right through to the 1800 small brand owners who have contributed by “adding a few more hectares of new vines”.

Some regions have simply not re-adjusted. In the 2010 harvest, 13,000 odd hectares of vines out of the total of 160,000 were not harvested due to no demand for the grapes.

These were mainly growers’ grapes. They sat on the vine and were converted into carbon. However those vines are still in the ground and capable of re-igniting the spectre of over-production in 2011.

The first evidence of vineyard adjustment in New South Wales in 2011 emerged late last week with a survey by the Newcastle Herald revealing 46 percent of Hunter Valley vineyards were no longer there. That was 3250 has reduced to 1750 during the past year or so.

The majority of vines have been lost in the Upper Hunter where the larger grower population is found. That’s also where the once famous large Rosemount winery was situated, and that has been gutted for want of a buyer for five years.

Also the Hunter Valley is home to Australia’s major wine tourism market, so despite being buffered by tourists who pay the highest retail prices, this sector of the industry is leading the adjustment phase very well.

Most Hunter Valley proprietors now chase the over USD15 market and varieties that are in demand.

Industry veteran and managing director of Tyrrell’s Wines in the Hunter Valley, Bruce Tyrrell described the market as the toughest he had seen.

Mr Tyrrell said producers who survived the next few years would have no choice but to come out stronger, more focused and making better quality wines.

He predicted a return to practices of 50 years ago with operators selling the majority of wine direct to consumers.

‘‘There were many vines planted in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons and they will all have to come out.’’

By March 2010, 6600 hectares, or 4.3 per cent of Australia’s plantings, had been removed with an additional 13,000 hectares not harvested.

If the industry removal estimate is 20 percent of production, the final amount to uproot is 32,000 hectares. Ouch!