Wine project to get $12m boost

ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post

DRINK UP: Taxpayers are funding research on sauvignon blanc during the next six years, to the tune of $12 million.

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Taxpayers have had an apparently "savvy" decision made on their behalf – they're kicking in $12 million to fund research on sauvignon blanc during the next six years.

The Foundation for Research Science and Technology grant will extend a research project on sauvignon blanc that began six years ago with $9.6m from the Government and $7m from the wine industry.

Details of the new programme are expected to be announced at the industry's three-day national Romeo Bragato Conference, to be held in Blenheim from August 26.

The programme is led by Plant & Food Research, with research continuing at Lincoln and Auckland universities and the Marlborough Wine Research Centre.

Plant & Food Research senior scientist Mike Trought said the research gave the industry information to help make consistently good sauvignon blanc.

It also examined ways to use geography, growing conditions and winemaking techniques to broaden the range of flavours in the wine.

The researchers could determine how to create a certain taste that could be used to engineer wine for a particular market, especially developing markets such as China and Japan, he said.

Managing the vines with new harvesting technology and controlling variation from year-to-year could allow winemakers to create different-tasting wines, or to maintain the standard New Zealand sauvignon blanc profile.

Ideally, a "juice index" would enable winemakers to objectively measure the flavour and aroma potential in the raw product.

Sauvignon blanc accounts for 80 per cent of New Zealand's wine exports, but during the recession some growers and winemakers have run into problems.

Two wine companies and a vineyard in Marlborough have gone into receivership, with more expected to follow.

Plant&Food Research principal scientist Roger Harker said New Zealand's wine industry had only scratched the surface of the commercial opportunity that locally grown sauvignon blanc presented.

The sauvignon blanc project's vision statement estimates the programme contributes $100m to $220m a year in wine exports for New Zealand.

- The Marlborough Express

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TD   #1   12:21 pm Jul 21 2010

This nothing but a subsidy. This is alcohol that they are producing and most people realise many of the problem it leads to. And what about other industries? How about pumping some "research" funds into them?

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