TAMRA Washington is a lucky woman. Three years ago she returned home to New Zealand to a job as winemaker at the Yealands Estate, newly-established in the prime wine-growing country of South Islands Awatere Valley, part of the famous Marlborough region.
Peter Yealands bought about 1,000 hectares of land 13 years ago and by 2005 had planted about 840 hectares of it with vines. The first wines were made in 2008 and by 2012 it will be in full production. Its set to be one of the biggest names in New Zealand Wine.
I met Tamra a fortnight ago on a whistle-stop visit to the North East. Shed agreed to give a tutored tasting of her wines organised by local wine-merchants Carruthers & Kent at their shop in Elmfield Road, Gosforth.
The New Zealand wine industry is committed to full, externally audited sustainability by 2012, but Yealands Estate has an almost obsessive desire be as environmentally responsible as possible. Our big philosophy, says Tamra, is minimum impact. The state-of-the-art winery in the middle of the vines is super-insulated; the vine clippings provide the energy to heat its water, which in turn is recycled. Its carbon-zero with knobs on. 125 hectares of vine are now also in a full organic regime, a massive, labour-intensive undertaking rare on such a scale for a cool-climate vineyard.
The biggest problem, Tamra told me, is keeping the weeds under control. Peters solution was to buy 15 sheep not big, burly New Zealanders, but dinky little British animals, some of whom can be heard happily bleating on the Yealands website along with the strangely haunting cry of the Tui bird biodiversity is another key part of the Yealands plan. The flock has grown. We now have about 200, Tamra told me. We leave them out all year round and they havent eaten the vine shoots or grapes yet. But just to be sure, she keeps the fruit out of woolly temptations way, by training the vines relatively high.
Tamra has the chance at Yealands Estate to craft the kind of wine she feels the excellent Awatere fruit demands: Ive never been in a place where each variety tastes just as it should, she enthused. The flavours in the grapes are stunning and I want to make the best-quality wines that I can. Shes doing well very well. All six of her wines that I tasted display a remarkable purity of fruit, in fact theyre quite elegant and subtle, often marked by a salty minerality. They are thus very food-friendly. I suspect theyd be an especially effective match for fine Asian cuisines.
Almost half of all the Sauvignon Blanc we drink in the UK is grown come New Zealand. It is Yealands Estates flagship variety too. The style is completely fantastic here, claims Tamra. She points out that advantage of such a big vineyard is that it offers a wide range of different blocks, each with its own soil conditions and climate. She chooses to vinify these separately. The winery is full of tanks of different sizes. From these she is able to blend exactly the kind of wine she wants. The result, Yealands Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2010 (£10.49 from Carruthers and Kent) has a wonderfully enticing tomato stalk and blackcurrant leaf smell. Its crisply fruity, but also quite mineral a flavour that lingers unusually long for the short-winded Sauvignon.
Another great success is Pinot Gris. Tamra sees a big future for it. I was unsure, but after years working in Italy (shes also made wine in Californian and Australia), Tamra has clearly got topside of this fickle variety; her wine (the 2009 is £10.49) is delicate, refreshing but also intriguingly gingery. 10% of it was fermented in oak, which adds depth and complexity. Riesling 2009 (£10.49) shows a sure touch, with clean, citrus fruit and a lingering mineral finish and Viognier 2009 (£11.49) is unusually delicate and again quite mineral. She is experimenting with the Austrian variety Grªner Veltliner and the great red wine grape of Rioja, Tempranillo: a tough call on a cool site, but Tamra is pleased with the early results. Its wine, she says, is rustic and savoury. Shed also love to try the great Piedmontese grape Nebbiolo in the Awatere Valley one day.
Pinot Noir has a proven track record in Marlborough and Yealands Estate Pinot Noir 2009 (£12.99) is a success. It has perfumed, crunchy red fruit and a touch of oak (only half the wine was aged in barrels). Subsequent vintages are better still.
Life at Yealands Estate is different from Tamras last job dashing around northern Italy as chief winemaker in charge of Sainsburys range from the Veneto. She greatly misses Italian food and culture, but relishes her new challenge. Taste my wine of the week, or any other, and I bet youll be glad she returned home too.
WINE EXTRAS
THE Wine Society has a special offer on their New Zealand range until February 12 (www.thewinesociety.com). Take advantage of their sure-footed selections with a discovery case of 12 different New Zealand wines (£129).
I tried a couple: The Crossings, Marlborough Pinot Noir, 2009, is made from fruit grown in the Awatere Valley, the home of Yealands Estate. It has a big, spicy, raspberry jam smell and a smooth, even silky flavour that combines juicy raspberries with cloves and white pepper: great value at the offer price of £9.75. The societys Exhibition Martinborough Pinot Noir 2009 comes from a small region at the tip of North Island where Pinot thrives. Even silkier, it is richer too, with plum and raspberry fruit and has a lingering spicy finish (£12.95). A Pinot Noir case offers two each of six high class wines from Marlborough and Martinborough (£140).
WINE OF THE WEEK
Yealands Estate, Gewªrztraminer, 2009, Carruthers & Kent, £10.49
DELICIOUS dry white wine with a heady aroma of rose petals, banana and lychee. An explosion of spicy fruit starts sweetly ripe and finishes dry and even a little salty. Tamra, who made it, suggests drinking it with a Thai pork curry, which sounds good to me.