Before winning the Central Otago Young Viticulturist of the Year competition last month, Mike Winter gave a speech at the annual black-tie winemakers Feraud dinner in Cromwell.
The assistant vineyard manager of Amisfield Winery wondered whether low-alcohol wines or ''lifestyle wines'', had a future in New Zealand.
He concluded in the affirmative, with a reservation.
The drop in the alcohol limit for drivers had changed the way people drank, and ''of course'' there was demand from those lifestylers who simply wished to wake up on Sunday morning without a hangover, he said.
Lower-calorie wine options were also attractive because, ''let's be honest, too much wine gets you drunk and makes you fat''.
His concern about low-alcohol wines was about how to ensure quality.
''Until we develop consistently high quality products, we simply run the risk of tarnishing New Zealand's reputation as a wine producer.''
If that could be mastered, the field represented ''a huge opportunity for our industry to once again lead the world in wine innovation''.
The speech, part of the competition, referenced the $17million research and development study under way by the New Zealand wine industry and the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI).
The study is examining how to put New Zealand at the forefront of the ''lifestyle wine'' industry.
Lifestyle wines are high-quality, naturally produced low-alcohol and lower-calorie wines. MPI estimates they will be worth $285 million a year to New Zealand by the end of 2023.
The study concentrates on production of low-alcohol wines (with typically less than 10% alcohol), low-calorie wines, and wines with less alcohol content than the typical Central Otago 14% to 14.5%.
Central Otago Winegrowers Association president and Mt Difficulty viticulturist James Dicey said the Central Otago industry's main interest was in creating wines with 12.5% to 13.5% alcohol.
And it could work out. Pinot noir, for example, was all about delicacy, finesse and sophistication, and sometimes sugar and alcohol ''gets in the way of finesse''.
By reducing the amount of alcohol, and being able to manipulate the sugar content, yields (amount of grapes or wine produced per unit surface of vineyard), and flavour of the wine, it would allow wine-makers to achieve the ''pinnacle of quality''In that way, the study was an opportunity to chase such perfection in Central Otago wines, he said.
Mt Difficulty was among 15 New Zealand wineries taking part in the study, and had already experimented with a low-alcohol wine, which would serve as the benchmark.
The wine was made from under-ripened grapes harvested before their sugars could develop, creating an experimental wine with ''green'' characters. Future batches would be measured against it.
As part of the programme, winemakers and viticulturists would use natural techniques to try to control the sugar content of the grapes while achieving ripened flavours, Mr Dicey said.
Techniques being investigated included considering the ratio of vine leaves to fruit and reducing the amount of leaves on a vine, or applying different natural crop sprays to suppress photosynthesis.
Different yeast strains, responsible for converting sugar into alcohol, were also being investigated to find ones that naturally produced less ethanol (a form of alcohol).
Until the study, some of the lower-alcohol wines were made using industrial processes such as ''spinning cones'' or ''reverse osmosis'' to strip the wine of alcohol, which is something the industry wanted to avoid.
The beer industry had pioneered popular lower-calorie beverages and the wine industry was ''following suit'', he said.
New Zealand Winegrowers chairman Steve Green said it was an opportunity to take a part of a potentially huge market, as well as being a pioneer in the industry.
People were becoming aware of alcohol and the levels of alcohol in what they drank, as well as the calories, which was ''part of the attraction'' of low-alcohol wine.
Nationally, the ''most obvious'' grapes for such wines were sauvignon blanc and pinot gris but, hopefully, low-alcohol versions would extend through to all the other varieties.
The R&D study was not about changing the cost structure of wines, but about taking part in a potentially ''huge'' market, and being a pioneer in the industry.
Mr Dicey said some wine labels already had low-alcohol wines in supermarkets, and there was ''a real opportunity to make a niche for New Zealand'' in the field.
Central Otago's role in the study was about making sure the little guys, the region, and red wine was not forgotten, he said.
Useful commercial-level results were expected in three to five years' time, and it was a case of ''watch this space'' in the meantime.
''If you don't start, you never finish.''
