Vintage 2024: Marlborough
"I'm just kind of pinching myself that the weather is so good," says Pernod Ricard's New Zealand Group Winemaker Jamie Marfell, as he approaches what will likely be his first Easter off in 34 years.
The new company headquarters and barrel hall replace the old buildings which have housed the wine company since its early days.
“We have grown steadily over the 21 years but I hope these wonderful new facilities will be the ‘home of Whitehaven’ for many years to come,” says Whitehaven founding partner Sue White.
They’re a big step up from the temporary facilities at the winery’s Paul’s Road site where the staff have been accommodated for the last 12 years in conditions described as ‘rustic at best”. They were in fact a former apple packing house, re-jigged to fit the winery’s demands. Sue and her late husband Greg literally placed partitions up within the packhouse, creating offices for the growing number of staff.
At the beginning, it wasn’t all about Sauvignon Blanc for Whitehaven – that was to come in the future. Their first vintage was just 50 tonnes - of Riesling. These days the new winery is capable of processing 7,500 tonnes – with the majority being exported.
It was 2003 when the tide began to turn for the company. Their Sauvignon Blanc was judged best Sauvignon Blanc at the San Francisco International Wine Challenge and helped secure a distribution deal with J&E Gallo, the US owned family wine company.
That partnership has helped Whitehaven become one of the mostly widely distributed and fastest growing ultra-premium New Zealand wine brands in the US and Canada. In 2008, Sauvignon Blanc made it into the ‘US Top 100’, an annual report published in the US Restaurant Wine Magazine which analyses annual wine consumption for the US hospitality and wine industries – and it was Whitehaven’s Sauvignon Blanc that made the list.
By 2010, the US Wine and Spirits magazine had declared Whitehaven the favourite New Zealand wine being poured for American consumers; its Sauvignon Blanc ranked third amongst the top-selling Sauvignon Blanc available in American restaurants.
In 21 years, the company has expanded from its origins as a boutique winery producing 500 cases, moving out to the Paul’s Road site in 2001 where a 2500-tonne winery was built in time for the 2002 harvest and further expanded to 5000 tonne in time for the 2007 vintage. With the new facilities, they will produce up to 7500 tonnes.
“As a company we are confident of the opportunities that are still out there for premium quality wine and we are optimistic about the future long- term sustainability of the Marlborough wine industry,” White says. “The hard work which so many companies have done to achieve and maintain production of premium quality wine is key to Marlborough – and New Zealand – preserving its reputation in the marketplace and we are committed to continuing that focus on quality.”
Being family owned and only sourcing Marlborough fruit, are two important elements in the success of the company she says.
