Where old meets new

Not only do the vines stretch skywards to 3.5 metres, dwarfing even the tallest of visitors but they make you realise there is more to this site than the millions of vines propagated from it every year. This block is where old meets new, where our wine industry's history sits side by side with its future.

Riversun's Waihuka source block is in fact, New Zealand's historical vine nursery, given it has the mother material for close to 250 DNA and virus tested individual varieties and clones. While nearly half of those are relatively recent imports from ENTAV and the rest of the world, the rest are selections that made their way to this country during the 19th and 20th centuries.

While only just over a decade old, Waihuka's national importance is indelibly much older. At least as old as the establishment of the National Research Centre for Viticulture in Te Kauwhata 100 years ago by Romeo Bragato. He and others that followed used the centre for propagating vines imported from France and California for the fledgling New Zealand wine industry and established our industry's first national vine library (source block).

In the 1980s Dr Richard Smart arrived at Te Kauwhata and he along with Dr Alan Clarke, (who helped establish the New Zealand Grapevine Improvement Group - NZGVIG) scoured the country looking for material to update the by now very run down vine library, which was riddled with Leafroll, Fanleaf and many other viruses. Much of the material underwent thermotherapy in Palmerston North to remove the viruses, and the cleaned up material was then relocated to Rukuhia, just south of Hamilton. Following the unwinding of the MAF Advisory Service in the early 90's viticultural research- and the vine library with it- languished, and when the land was handed back to Tainui and leased out, the fruit was used to produce Greenways Grape Juice.

Enter once again the NZGVIG. In the late 90's they decided these collections were far too important to let go began harvesting the most important historical material, checking its virus status and relocating the cleanest material to a VIG controlled site in Marlborough. (The material deemed as virus laden was separately planted at Rakaia).

Riversun's founding director, Geoff Thorpe had joined the VIG early in his vine nursery career and by the mid 90's had become chairman of the Gisborne branch. By the late 90's his company was purchasing nearly 70% of all the VIG wood harvested nationwide, but he had increasing concerns about the virus status and trueness to type of some of the material being supplied. The standard VIG source block material had no certified traceability, which meant no one could actually confirm if a particular vine was in fact what it was purported to be.

"As a nursery, if we are selling somebody Pinot Noir 777, we want to have the highest level of confidence that it is in fact Pinot Noir 777, and we don't want it to be infected with any virus that is going to affect the quality of the fruit or the longevity of that vine," he says.

"Back in the 1990's most of the material we at the VIG were distributing was harvested out of commercial vineyards where traceability to the original imports was virtually non-existent. Furthermore, pre 1996 there was no ELISA testing being done prior to harvest of the wood, we were simply checking for the absence of any visual symptoms of Leafroll Virus."

Based on what he had learned through trips to California and Europe during the 90's, in 1998 he decided the time was right to take full control of the company's own source material. That decision set Riversun on the path that has led to the giant source block of national importance, known as Waihuka.

"We went back to Te Kauwhata, to Rukuhia, and to as many of the original plantings of the most recent (1990's) imports that we could find. We also set up our own IANZ accredited lab to do all the ELISA testing (Linnaeus), Nick Hoskins joined us from Martinborough, Dr Rod Bonfiglioli joined us from Australia and soon he arranged for all of this material to be sent to Canada for PCR testing for 18 viruses. We then used the very cleanest material to create our own high health source block right here in Gisborne.

"In 2002 we signed up as New Zealand licensees for ENTAV and between 2003 and 2010 imported over 120 new varieties and clones from all corners of the globe through our own MPI accredited quarantine facility- and while it was a huge team effort, it is Dr Rod's greatest legacy to our industry".

From this source block scionwood is harvested and stored, then carefully grafted onto varying rootstock varieties in spring before being planted out in the Whatatutu field nursery, some 30 minutes away. This block too is impressive. A total of 50 hectares, each year it is home to almost three million baby vines. Literally a sea of them, many Sauvignon Blanc. It is hard to imagine whilst looking out over row upon row of Sauvignon babies, that they owe their life to just 20 original vines, collected back in 2000. Riversun brought the world's most respected ampelographer -Professor Jean-Michel Boursiquot out from Montpellier University, to travel the country with the Riversun team and select candidate vines of each of the most important varieties- ones that he considered to be the most true to type, of the highest health, displaying exceptional fruiting quality.

As part of that programme, he selected some Sauvignon Blanc MS vines then growing at Jackson Estate in Marlborough. Jean-Michel who visited Riversun's Whatatutu field nursery earlier this year, joked that he would love to have a dollar for every vine that has been grown since those first 20 were planted in the source block.

"That was the beginning of this mass selection," he said, "and I am quite surprised to see that what I did in one day in Marlborough has turned into this."

What are the current trends?

While Sauvignon Blanc makes up the majority of new plantings and has for a number of years, Thorpe says there are others that are emerging. Particularly with new ENTAV clones of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. As for trends, that is always harder to predict, given the time frame it takes for a trend to emerge.

"It is a seven to nine-year period before you can tell if a trend is going to work, at least. From importation it is 15 years. We are 13 years on from our first imports entering quarantine and we are only just now starting to see that second wave of demand."

One variety that is hitting its straps, and gaining a second wave of interest is Albarino.

"It's making some great wines. It appears particularly well suited to the soils and climate in Gisborne, that is where the bulk of the plantings are and one big wine company is now beginning to back that. They are also seeing good consumer demand. So of the 30 new varieties we brought in, that one is currently standing head and shoulders above the rest, as having potential."

Describing the industry as being "very much in a positive mode", he says the initial flurry around the other 29 new varieties Riversun imported, has quietened off a bit.

"There have been some wines, some great outcomes and there have been some challenges," he says, "for the vignerons who are courageously learning how to grow, where to grow, how to make the wines and how to sell it."

In terms of other trends, Thorpe says while the new varieties get a lot of press, it is actually the new clones of the classic varieties which have really taken off.

"Chardonnay 548, Pinot Gris 457, Pinot Noir 828 and 943 in particular. Since first released from quarantine they have had very good support- year in and year out. Today they probably account for 90 percent of the new import material we sell."

Rootstock

There have also been changes in the rootstock growers are requesting he says.

"The big change in the last five to seven years would be the increasing reliance on 3309. It seems to perform in a very wide range of soils, and through trial and error people have landed on that. It has gone from 35% to over 60% of our grafting capacity in that relatively short time".

"But I always get a bit nervous when any business or industry places all their eggs in one basket. It seems a high risk strategy- just ask the growers of the original Gold kiwifruit (16A)- in the last five years it has virtually disappeared from the industry post the arrival of PSA-V."

Some other rootstock changes have seen a gradual increase in popularity- for example Riparia Gloire, which some Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc growers are utilising to control vigour in heavier, more fertile sites.

"Throughout the 2000's Schwarzmann was very popular, but it has eased off a bit. We still do reasonable volumes of it, but because it tends to have better fruit set and therefore tighter bunches, this can create a botrytis risk.

"101-14 has a susceptibility to black foot disease (cylindrocarpon) and this has seen many shy away from it over the last decade, however it performs very well, as long as you have free draining soils.

'SO4 is also being planted in reasonable volumes in some of the less vigorous sites of Marlborough, either where soils are very bony or where wind run is high.

"But what we are increasingly seeing is that for most growers, 3309 is their first choice and if the nursery industry had more of it available, the percentage of new planting going in on this rootstock would probably be even higher"."

The future

Laurent Audeguin from ENTAV-INRA has been around long enough to see massive changes in the clonal selection business. He says those changes have been influenced by; firstly demand for product, then demand for quality and more recently the impact of global warming.

"In the 60s and 70s," he says, "we were looking for clones that had high potential of production. Then at the beginning of the 80s and 90's we were more focused on quality. Mainly low yields, loose bunches and also higher sugar content. At that time, we didn't have any trouble with global warming."

For the past 15 years, as temperatures have risen, weather events have become more severe and droughts have impacted, Audeguin says they have had to look for clones that can deal with the changes.

"We are trying to find clones that will accumulate less sugar, but also clones that provide a good content. Will we succeed? I don't know.

"I mention sugar, but in the future, acidity could be the key point. If we lose acidity year after year, it has an impact on the aromas, an impact on the aging attitudes of the wines and for reds it has an impact on the colour."

It is inevitable, given Riversun's commitment to the past and the future, that those developments will be included within any further growth of the Waihuka source block.