Kaituna stunner

3 March 2005

Jane Sanders

Hard workers: Helen and Grant Whelan with 18-month-old Joshua at their vineyard in Kaituna Valley. Photo: Jane Sanders

Relevant offers

Story Archives

Art for living's sake Kaituna stunner CHANGE 4 LIFE ARANUI The grey debate September 11 remembered at Firefighters Reserve Hooked by the white belt Faultline families A father's dream come true NZ to host world ploughmen

An impressive list of medals and stars is not stopping Grant and Helen Whelan's search for better wines, writes Mary Kirk-Anderson.

What kind of career goals does a winemaker have? Well, among them is the need to drink more wine.
Grant Whelan, winemaker and owner, with wife Helen, of Kaituna Valley wines, is putting together a hit list of wines to broaden his palate. They include some good pinot noirs from cool-climate Oregon and from California's Russian River region, along with a classic French burgundy or two _ not just any burgundy, mind you, but "a really good vintage from one of the best vineyards".
"It will cost quite a bit of money, so we might have to find someone to share the costs with," Whelan says "but as winemakers we do need to have a broad tasting experience."
He grins as he says it, and one could be inclined to think that it is just a good excuse for a fine drop, but, with a reputation as a skilled winemaker and a hard-working and successful pinot-noir fanatic, Whelan's desire to improve his knowledge and, subsequently, his wines is evident. It is that search for wine's Holy Grail, as they say _ the perfect pinot noir, from the wine world's most challenging grape.
"Chardonnay you can grow in most places and produce good wine," he says. "Pinot noir? You could plant it everywhere but only one or two sites will produce really good wine. It doesn't show its true beauty everywhere."
And great wine can only come from a great raw product, no matter the skill of the winemaker.
"The secret is to have stunningly good grapes, and then don't screw it up."
Clearly, not a sin he is guilty of. Kaituna Valley is a small label with a bigger reputation and an impressive list of medals and stars on its CV. It's very first vintage, the 1993 pinot noir, won the trophy for champion pinot noir at the 1995 Royal Easter Show, and the accolades have kept coming.
The Whelans admit there have been some crazy years as they spent every waking moment getting their vineyards set up, making wine, and thinking about and learning how to do it all better. Now, with the arrival 18 months ago of their son Joshua, and the appointment of a manager for their Marlborough vineyards, they have put at least some of the craziness behind them. But the work and the passion for wine goes on.
With about 32ha of land _ both their own and as part of joint ventures _ in Kaituna Valley, Tai Tapu, and Awatere Valley in Marlborough, the Whelans have a useful spread of regions and grapes, including pinot noir, pinot gris, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc on which to draw, and a winery planned for the Summerhill vineyard at Tai Tapu is expected to be operational and open for tastings next year.
Part of the Awatere land is given over to vines planted closer together and grown closer to the ground than usual, with rows about 1.6m apart instead of the usual 2.5m to 3m. The theory is that by ripening a smaller amount of fruit, the flavour will be intensified.
"That was one of the my pet ideas to try out," Grant says. "I'm a bit of a high-density obsessive. You couldn't do this everywhere, but it suits Blenheim's stony soils."
All the Kaituna-label wines are single-vineyard wines, with no blending of grapes from theirs or other vineyards. Grant feels strongly about the need for this separation, to give each wine a sense of place and character.
"They ( the grapes) are all so different both in terms of taste and structure.
"I can't say it's sacrilege to blend them, but it doesn't make sense to me. I like the wines to reflect where they have come from, rather than having some homogenous pinot noir. I like it to have a sense of place."
A sense of place is something the Whelans also value in their own lives. They have made their home at their Kaituna Valley property on Banks Peninsula, where the A-framed house looks out over their vineyards to the hills and farmlands beyond. The site has some of New Zealand's oldest pinot noir vines, planted in the 1970s by Graeme Steans, the previous owner.
Grant was introduced to wine and winemaking by a keen red-wine homebrewer while working in Gisborne as a soil scientist in the 1980s, following his graduation from Lincoln University with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science. He came back to Lincoln to do a PhD in plant physiology, but two years into it, the university began offering a viticulture and oenology programme, and he was hooked. The PhD never did get finished.
Helen, meanwhile, had completed her PhD in plant pathology and they began to put their academic training and new- found interest to practical use, managing Stean's small but established vineyard.
The science background has turned out to be an ideal base on which to build their knowledge.
"We have found that the further down the track we go, the more important the science becomes," Grant says.
From 1993 the couple began to buy the Kaituna Valley grapes and make wine under that label at Rossendale Wines, where Grant was also winemaker. That latter appointment was a brave move on Rossendale's part, Grant says, given his inexperience at that time, but he continued in the winemaking role until 2002 and still uses the Rossendale space to make Kaituna Valley wines. He has also made wine for several other small vineyards, but now restricts that to the Bentwood label.
As time went on and their skill grew, the Whelans began to acquire their own land, including eventually buying the Steans property, and getting in to Awatere Valley when vineyards there were still few and prices were manageable.
But they are not interested in becoming another Montana. They want simply to make the best wines they can, although they are quick to point out how important the big operations are to the industry, particularly in terms of establishing international credibility and recognition for New Zealand wines.
Of his family's Kaituna Valley lifestyle, Grant says: "This is home. It's a great environment to live in, and it's close to Christchurch without being in it."
As for the so-called romance of owning a vineyard, that luxury is only for people not actually in the industry, he says.
"It's a nice notion, and it's nice to sit on the deck and have a glass of wine and know that you have created it, but there is a lot of hard work and dedication involved."

- © Fairfax NZ News