New Zealand wine history

New Zealand is a newcomer to human populations with Polynesian tribes from the South Pacific only arriving around 700 years ago. These early tribes found a fertile and temperate land which allowed them to settle easily. These new tribes became what is now known as the Maoris and the first people of the country. The first European explorer known to sight New Zealand was Dutch navigator Abel Tasman on 13 December 1642. He explored and charted the coastline but never landed. Captain James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European explorer to circumnavigate and map New Zealand.

From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori the same rights as British subjects. Winemaking and vine growing date from around the same time in New Zealand.

British Resident and keen oenologist James Busby, who had also established the Hunter Valley wine region in Australia, was producing wine on his land near Waitangi for local British soldiers in 1836. In 1851 New Zealand’s oldest existing vineyard was established by French Roman Catholic missionaries for making Communion wine, at what is now the Mission Estate Winery in Hawke’s Bay. In 1883 William Henry Beetham was recognised as being the first pioneer to plant Pinot Noir and Hermitage (Syrah) grapes in New Zealand.

In 1895 the expert consultant viticulturist and oenologist Romeo Bragato was invited by the NZ government’s Department of Agriculture to investigate winemaking possibilities and after tasting Beetham’s Hermitage he concluded that the Wairarapa and New Zealand was “pre-eminently suited to viticulture”. This did give New Zealand the advantage of entering full scale wine production after the Phylloxera epidemic. For the first half of the 20th century, economic, legislative and cultural factors had made wine a marginal activity, in terms of economic importance and domestic consumption. Most land use in New Zealand was at the time (and largely still is) animal agriculture, and the exports of dairy, meat and wool dominated the economy. The prohibition and temperance movements had reduced the appreciation of wine with the New Zealand public, who were mostly British immigrants who favoured beer and spirits, and the Great Depression of the 1930s did the young wine industry no favours. It wasn’t until the 1960’s when alcohol laws started to relax allowing New Zealanders to understand and appreciate wine. The first law change ended the ‘six o’clock swill’ that meant pubs could only open for one hour after work and closed all day Sunday as well as granting BYO (bring your own) licences to restaurants. It was in the 1970’s, however, when Britain joined the EU and ended previously advantageous trade, which forced New Zealand to look into higher earning crops of which vines were seen as the greatest opportunity. In 1973 Montana (now Brancott Estate under Pernod Ricard) planted Marlborough’s first vineyard and produced its first Sauvignon Blanc in 1979, labelled by year of production (vintage) and grape variety, in the style of wine producers in Australia. During the 1980s, wineries in New Zealand, especially in the Marlborough region, began producing outstanding, some critics said unforgettable, Sauvignon Blanc. It wasn’t until 1985 that the Sauvignon Blanc from Cloudy Bay Vineyards (now LVMH) finally brought international attention and critical acclaim to New Zealand wine.