Wine From A Stone

My introduction to the wines of Steve Smith of Craggy Range, one of a pair of New Zealand wine masters to visit New York recently, came at a time when wine was not foremost in my mind. I¹d arrived in Auckland looking forward to a care-free two week traversal of Kiwi wine country. The date was September 11, 2001. My wish was to fly right back home, but the international airlanes were closed.And so I went through the motions of doing what suddenly seemed like a frivolous business. So many of the wines I tasted displayed the direct fruit purity that is a Kiwi signature. Beyond that, often, there wasn’t much else to praise. Mr. Smith’s wines also brimmed with that pure fruit. But there was more, particularly in his merlot: refined texture and complexity that comes from a sense of layered flavors. Those wines from his early portfolio, tasted in a temporary office in Gisbourne while Craggy Range’s spectacular new winery was under construction at the foot of nearby Te Mata mountain, made me eager to see what Mr. Smith would produce in the future. Especially the reds,which until then took a back seat to sauvignon blanc, the emblematic wine of New Zealand.The future arrived in New York last Wednesday at Craft restaurant, as Mr. Smith conducted a tasting of a dozen wines,including impending releases from the 2004 vintage. The focus was on “Sophia,” Craggy Range’s proprietary red blend of merlot and cabernet franc, with an occasional touch of cabernet sauvignon. Those three varieties were once short-listed as being unable to fully ripen in New Zealand’s cool climate. But Mr. Smith, who was the first viticulturist to earn the coveted title of “Master of Wine,” had faith in one distinctive location at Hawkes Bay on the North Island: a wending ribbon of gray stones and gravel called Gimblett Gravels, the dry bed of a river that had altered its course after a 19th-century flood. Those rocks and gravel, more than 100 feet deep, absorb and retain daytime heat long after the sun has gone down, giving a needed boost to grape ripening in this cool climate. Gimblett Gravels, once considered suitable only for low-value uses such as a shooting range and a recycling center, is now coveted vineyard land. Craggy Range owns 250 acres of the Gimblett Gravels. “From the heat point of view, we’re a little warmer than Bordeaux,a little cooler than Hermitage in the Rhone Valley,” Mr. Smith said.The tasting began with “Les Beaux Cailloux” Chardonnay 2004 from Gimblett Gravels. It was a lovely and refined wine, but other Kiwi chardonnays are in its class, ranging from Kumeu River in the north to Felton Road in the south.Then came Craggy Range’s “Le Sol”syrah 2004, energized by a rip-current of peppered blueberry fruit. But syrah arguably excells in more places on the globe than any other red grape. Superb though it is, “Le Sol” has lots of company in its class.”Sophia,”by contrast, is unlike any other wine I know, although it comes closest to bearing a resemblance to Bordeaux’s “Right Bank” wines such as Saint Emilion, where a blend of merlot and cabernet franc also creates personality synergy.Of the five consecutive Sophia vintages tasted starting with 2001, the oldest was the most extroverted, indicating that this wine needs time to develop. Like all the Sophias, the 2001 vintage had a rich, meaty scent that gave off maximum energy. In the mouth, the wine seems as deep as the Gimblett Gravels; its spicy dark-fruit flavors inflected by fennel, new leather, and the inner perfume of a medley of wildflowers. Like all great wines, this one lasts long on the palate and in memory. Due to a killer freeze, there was no Sophia 2003, but the 2002 vintage remains ($47.95 at Sherry-Lehmann). It’s a bit lusher, at this stage, than the 2001, and just as distinctive.In the week before Mr.Smith’s visit,Kiwi wine guru Daniel Schuster led, at Morrell’s Tasting Room, a sampling of his eponymous wines from vineyards in Waipara, a developing wine region on the South Island. Austrian-born, Mr. Schuster is, like Steve Smith, proud to be called a viticulturalist rather than a winemaker. He’s been a vineyard adviser to prestigious Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa Valley and Ornellaia in Tuscany.Mr. Schuster’s own wines have previously received mixed reviews, possibly because he favors a leaner, European style over New World juiciness. But in a visit to the winery nestled into a ridge of the Omihi Hills earlier this year, I was wowed by a range of Schuster wines from sauvignon blanc to pinot noir.That opinion held firmly at the New York tasting. Schuster’s Petrie Vineyard Chardonnay 2004, Waipara ($29.95 at Morrell’s) was in the Chablis style, with gunflint aromas and pared-down texture, yet with plenty of flavor to balance lively acidity. “When I’m eating raw oysters, I want the wine to act like a squeeze of lemon, but more interesting,” Mr. Schuster said.Of a trio of pinot noirs, Schuster’s Waipara 2004 ($29.95 at Morrell’s) was light-bodied but enlivened by a fresh berry tang. A step up was the Omihi Pinot Noir 2004, Waipara ($42.95 at Morrell’s), with its darker, richer aromas. This wine pulled off the nifty trick of carrying the heft of earthy, irony taste, yet doing it with light-footed grace. Distinctive stuff, showing yet one more region of New Zealand that excels at pinot noir.Twenty years after New Zealand first dazzled us with its Marlborough sauvignon blancs, it’s a sign of the expanding range of this isolated land’s vineyards that not neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Schuster showed a single example of sauvignon blanc. New Zealand has so much more to give us than that.

Wine From A Stone

Wine From A Stone

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