Pushing the boundaries

Hawke’s Bay winemaker Gordon Russell talks about his favourite Esk Valley wines while in Dunedin at Wine Freedom recently. Photo: Peter McIntosh
Hawke’s Bay winemaker Gordon Russell talks about his favourite Esk Valley wines while in Dunedin at Wine Freedom recently. Photo: Peter McIntosh
Gordon Russell hand plunges grapes in Esk Valley’s concrete tubs. Photo: Supplied
Gordon Russell hand plunges grapes in Esk Valley’s concrete tubs. Photo: Supplied

There is nothing Hawke’s Bay winemaker Gordon Russell likes more than pushing the boundaries. The New Zealand wine identity spoke to Rebecca Fox about enjoying wine at its most raw.

Gordon Russell has a vision: people lining up with their flagons at craft beer outlets not to fill up with beer but the latest season's wine.

Like the first of the season's asparagus, oysters or potatoes, he believes people should to able to enjoy what he gets to enjoy every season - the cloudy, yeast and grape pulp-filled remains of the fermentation process.

''It's like wheat beer or freshly brewed craft beer. I love the concept of having a seasonal wine.''

It could be put into kegs and shipped to craft beer retailers.

''It's cloudy. It doesn't look like wine as we know it. The next process, I often feel, takes a lot of the good out of the wine.

''It's enjoying the wine at its most raw. It's something I get to enjoy each year and I wish more people did.''

It was an offering he would ''seriously like to be part off'', he said while in Dunedin recently.

Russell has been winemaking since 1990 and moved to Esk Valley in the Hawke's Bay in 1993.

He has stayed with Esk Valley partly because of his relationship with owner Sir George Fistonich.

''I flippantly say I spend the money, he pays the bills. There is a lot of truth to that.''

It means Russell can concentrate on making wine and not worry about the accounting.

''I've been able to make wine, talk about it, have control over it, and it has been such a great opportunity.

''How else could I afford or get the opportunity to make wine from some of New Zealand's great vineyards?''

He also gets to work at a 85-year-old winery set in the ''most incredible location'' overlooking the ocean.

''I'm a custodian of something which I've been able to have an input into.''

Esk Valley's red wine is made in concrete tubs and the wine is hand-plunged by his and his staff's muscles.

''It's labour intensive. We work hard. It's a very artisan winery but on a commercial scale.''

Russell has been involved in a range of ''New Zealand firsts'' at Esk Valley, including the first merlot, first malbec, first co-fermented red, first verdehlo, first merlot rose to name a few.

''All the time there has been the opportunity to push the boundaries, be the first to do certain things in the New Zealand wine landscape and that's been really exciting.''

Verdehlo, a white grape from Portugal, was hardly known when Esk Valley started growing it, he said.

He is now hoping to create an alberino (made from a white grape from Spain) wine in two years.

''It's a incredibly exciting and interesting grape variety which is ideally suited to New Zealand and the Hawke's Bay.''

Esk Valley is known as a producer of dry rose, but rose has evolved and is becoming one of the hottest categories of wine sales, he says.

''Over the years our rose has got lighter in colour, drier in style and more like the wines from the south of France, which mirrors what has gone on with chardonnay which for a while was big and oaky and now our chardonnay is fermented with wild yeast and the style is more elegant, perhaps more European.

''These are old things but they are still exciting and evolving.''

While he likes pushing the boundaries, it is also important not to loose focus on what the Hawke's Bay does really well: bordeaux-style red wines and chardonnay.

''They've got to be our focus and we've got to guarantee that's what we do and we do it really well. The other things are a folly in some respect.''

So he has seen quite a few changes in the industry, such as the rise of Marlborough out of nowhere to become one of the most known wine regions in the world, the growth in savignon blanc to completely dominate New Zealand winegrowing, the rise in pinot noir and with it Central Otago and the demise of the traditional Gisborne, Waikato and Auckland wine areas.

There has also been the growth in organics and sustainable winegrowing, as well as New Zealand establishing its place in the world of premium wines.

''The introduction of new styles of wine and new varieties. A lot's gone on, nothing stands still.

''Wine will come in cans, I have no doubt, but at the end of the day, its about the wine.''

Winemaking itself has also changed from the days when winemakers ''played god'' to create a precise and consistent style every year.

''My own winemaking has changed significantly.''

Where winemakers once added sugar if it was not a great year, they are now very much hands off, letting the wine be more expressive of where it was grown.

''We make more elegant wines now. It's very hands-off winemaking. We know what can go wrong.

''We are making wines much more expressive of the vineyards they come from.

''I like that it fits with a lot of things - my lifestyle, how I think about the environment, sustainability.''

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