Thursday, 16 February 2012 11:29

Mr Gimblett Gravels

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Abloke not given to self-promotion, Phil Holden says he is called Mr Gimblett Gravels – a well-deserved moniker given the many trophy-winning wines this Villa Maria vineyard manager has grown on the group's sites just west of Hastings.

At the 2010 Romeo Bragato Wine Awards, Phil scored three trophies for Vidal Reserve Syrah 2007 including Reserve Champion of Show and the Sustainability Trophy in the award's inaugural year.

In the 2011 competition, he arguably went one better in winning trophies for three different wine styles – Viognier, a Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot blend and Grenache – all grown in the Omahu Gravels Vineyard.

Phil is clearly a man who enjoys his job.

"It's never boring," he says in his typically understated way. "There's always something happening. And the practical nature of the work – it's well-known that's me really. I'm practical, I like to get on with the job and I've always wanted to work outside."

After leaving school in Wellington, Phil took on a trainee technician position at the Forestry Research Institute in Rotorua and went on to do casual work on farms on the Coromandel and in Hawkes Bay.

Then the OE itch set in.

"I headed off overseas for a year and stayed for three," he says of his youthful travels, which is when he met his future wife, Gerry.

Returning to New Zealand, Phil gained a Diploma in Horticulture from Massey University in 1983 and for the following 18 years owned and managed orchards in Hawkes Bay. During that time, he grew 19 separate varieties including apples, stonefruit, kiwifruit, nashi and pears.

"So I suppose I'm a typical Kiwi. I like to give things a try."

Attracted to the dynamism of the New Zealand wine industry, Phil joined Villa Maria in 1999. He was unfazed about moving into a different area of growing and a job that would include establishing new vineyard.

"I had done a lot of orchard development so development, like frost protection and irrigation, was not new to me."

Gimblett Gravels, however, posed particular challenges. Ngakirikiri Vineyard was planted, the Omahu Gravels Vineyard was five percent planted but the rest was bare paddock, and rough bedrock at that.

Development work required bulldozers and putting in an irrigation system and wells.

"It's reasonably intensive because it's Gimblett Gravels and irrigation is so critical. The inputs are much greater than for the equivalent area in, say, Australia."

Phil says the variable layers of silt and stones of the former river bed and banks do make for challenging viticulture.

"There are high and low vigour vines within the blocks and even within rows, and we have to work really hard with that to improve the quality of the grapes. Basically we add compost to low vigour vines, and reduce inputs – water and fertiliser – to high vigour vines to the point of shutting the water right off to get control.

"But the whole point of being here is that the soils don't promote high vigour vines, and they impart additional qualities of warmth and free-draining soils."

Phil oversees a wide range of varieties – Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot, Grenache, Chardonnay, Viognier and Verdelho.

He says that while the rest of Hawkes Bay may be marginal in terms of heat units for all the red varieties he manages, Gimblett Gravels meet their requirements in most years.

"That applies to Cabernet Sauvigon, Merlot and especially Grenache.

" One of the biggest planted varieties in the world, Grenache will sometimes ripen later than Cabernet Sauvignon."

Asked which variety he finds hardest to grow, Phil says Cabernet Sauvignon comes to mind.

"Grenache is not so prone to disease. Cabernet Sauvignon is late ripening and it's difficult to get that full flavour ripeness. And it's prone to more disease at an earlier age.

The easiest is Merlot. It's easy to grow but more difficult to crop at full flavour ripeness."

Although adapting to viticulture was initially a steep and interesting learning curve, he didn't find moving from managing orchards to managing vineyards too much of a problem.

"There are a lot of crossover similarities with machinery (they've all got wheels and break down), irrigation, contract labour and development. It's all stuff I've done before."

One plus he sees in being involved in viticulture is being able to take a bottle of wine rather a pack of apples to dinner with friends. More seriously, Phil says wine, unlike orchard fruit, is not a perishable end product.

He recalls his accountant telling him, when he sold his orchard, that he would return to self-employment.

"But growing, it's hard to make money out of it. You need the economies of scale. If you grow apples, there is an advantage in being big and having a pack house. If you produce wine, it goes with having a winery.

"And you've got to have the business part under control. Marketing power is so

One change he cites is the industry's increased appreciation of the significance of the vineyard in making premium wines.

"It's a combined effort," he says of the winegrower and winemaker roles. "Either of us could mess it up. It's important to start with a very good site and it's our job to maximise its benefits. We are lucky in that area."

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