On 19 September 1997 in Tokyo, newsletter editor Melanie Drane spoke with David Hohnen, founder of Cloudy Bay (Marlborough, New Zealand) and Cape Mentelle (Margaret River, Australia).
David Hohnen: I guess I came to winemaking thru my father. He was unusual for his generation because he enjoyed wine. Australians really didn't come to wine as a readily-used beverage in the house until the 1960s or 70s. I always tell people that my kids will be the first actually born to a generation of wine drinkers.
He drank wine because he left school at 16 and had gone to New Caldeonia to work in the mines there. So he was influenced by the French culture. And while he was no wine connoisseur, he enjoyed wine, always had it around the house. And I wanted a carrer that combined agriculture and some form of processing and manufacture. Wine seemed ideal, and has been, worked very well.
My education in California was simply a desire to get out of Australia at that time, and an opportunity to study the course that I wanted in my own language. So really the only choice outside of Australia was the US. That was a good decision, a good course. I don't think it had any huge effect on my approach to wine, outside of the mores of the time. But certainly since then, I've maintained good contacts.
In particular, the sparkling wine called Pelorus we make at Cloudy Bay is a direct consequence of an association I've maintained with a guy I went through college with called Harold Osbourne. He was unique for his generation of graduates in that he went straight into sparkling wine, with Schramsberg...and spent at least 8 years with them, before setting up the operation for Deutz in California. He had a wealth of sparkling wine experience, and in 1987 helped us establish Pelorus and has been working with us ever since as a consultant.
MD: You've shown remarkable foresight in choosing sites for wineries, where others were initially skeptical of the potential.
DH: I can't claim any credit for selecting Margaret River; it was a happy coincedence. My family had a small farm there. A friend of my father, Tom Culherty, who lived across the road from us in Perth. Tom planted in Margaret River in 1967, and one thing led to another. So it was really my father's encouragement that led to my moving there after Fresno.
Shiraz in Maragaret River...well, Shiraz is what we call a mid-season ripener, so that it is really quite adaptable. It will ripen in quite cool climates and it will certainly ripen in warmer climates. By comparinson, Cabernet is a late-season ripener and that limits it to rather warm areas. It produces a rather woody wine if it's grown in what we call cool climates, with some exceptions.
Shiraz is one varietals among a number that show distinctive characters in the region where it's grown. Usually if it's handled with some sensitivity by the winemaker, it's capable of showing some regional chracter as well as what we call varietal characters. I don't think anyone's unravelled the chemistry of that, thankfully. It's still something controlled by nature, a factor of soils, climate, and viticultural practices.
Typically in Australia, most consumers associate Shiraz with the style produced in our warmer climates, such as the Hunter and Barossa Valleys. That style is very ripe, fairly high alcohol, usually plummy to jammy...very often fairly heavily oaked to try and give some edge, some backbone to the ripeness and high alcohol.
At the other end of the scale, you have the Shiraz that ripens late in the season. These tend to show the spicy end of the spectrum because these are cool regions. So they reveal what we call white pepper, anise seed, licorice characters of Shiraz.
I think Margaret River fits squarely between those extremes. It ripens Shiraz fully, so you can't call it a cool climate, but it's not a hot area, like the Barossa. So we've got a happy situtaion of ripe Shiraz without being overripe. In the warmer years, it's perhaps without the definition and spicyness of the cooler-region Shiraz. But always a distinctive wine, usually with berry rather than plummy characters, and in the cooler years, like 93, a touch of anise seed and white pepper.
The 1995 vintage, which I hope is currently still available in the odd shop here, reflects a very ripe year and small crops. It's very concentrated, rich, dark, fruity wine.
About Cloudy Bay: that certainly was a choice of my own. It arose from tasting the wines and again recognizing that NZ in some regions was producing something very distinctive in Sauvignon Blanc. So I went to NZ and found that the Sauvignon Blanc style that I realy liked was being produced in Marlborough. Hence the move. Subsequently, I found that it makes for great Chardonnay and more recently, we've been making a dry Pinot Noir, and we've been making the Pelorus since '87.
You asked me about soils. They're important to an extent. The vine is a plant of the desert; it's very, very hardy. It's fortunately not too particular about soils, but it does require soils that will sustain at least moderate vigor and it does require good drainage. In both situations, we have soils that are ideal. At Margaret River, we have gravel soils formed from decomposed granate. In Marlborough, the soil is part of an alleuvial flood plain, and we have very, very deep washed gravel with good rich silt in between.
MD: Are you using fruit from strictly your own vineyards at Cape Mentelle?
A: No, at both locations. We started just using our own fruit at Margaret River; in fact you couldn't buy fruit in the early days. Now we have three growers who are very important to us, old Margret River growers. They provide nearly half of the crush at CM. And at Marlborough, when we started, we built only a winery and relied on growers. Today, we have six growers that supply almost 2/3s of the crush. We've since bought and planted two estates of our own and we're developing a third.
MD: In reviewing the literature about your wineries, a subject that came up several times was the change of style over the years in both places. You're known for experimentation and innovation in both vineyard and cellar. What do you see in that process as the successful landmarks, and have there also been disappointments?
DH: Margaret River started in '67; Marlborough started in '72, so in looking at wine, we're looking at two extraordinarily young regions. So it's acceptable that it has taken some time and will take even longer to evolve the styles of wine that best reflect the ultimate quality from those two regions. We're pretty close, but I think we're still part of that evolution of style.
In Margaret River, we've found that more important than the vinification techniques is viticulture, and we will re-write the viticultural textbooks for MR. It has characteristic and problems that are unique to the region.
Secondly, having grown grapes successfully, is again not so much the vinification but accessing ripeness in terms of being relevant to the style of ripeness that we want to make. For both reds and whites, we're looking for full ripeness-in terms of both tannin ripeness and sugar ripeness, that happy confluence of all three that gives you the really great wines. It can be achieved in most years, but not all. In Margaret River, the difficult years are the really hot ones, with accelerated ripening, high sugars, ahead of tannin and flavor ripeness. Also difficult are the really cool years, where you struggle to achieve sugar ripeness before the rain's onset in May.
At Cloudy Bay, again, I think it's been viticulture. In a period of 10 years, we've been able to dramatically change and really improve the sugar/acid/ph-balance of the fruit that we harvest to its improvement. We've also been able to influnece, in the canopies, the flavor and aroms spectrum. And again, it's been a matter of managing the vineyards to achieve full ripeness, because in most years, you'll be struggling with rain during mid to late autumn when you're harvesting. So it's always a battle to achieve what we call full ripeness. It becomes a logistical battle rather than one of wine science.
MD: I've noted that you've been using wild yeasts.
A: Yes, that's happening in the Pinot, the Chard, and to some extent in the base wines for Pelorus. That's a gradual process, reflected all over the winemaking world; it's nothing new. But with the wild yeast, you tend to get a slower fermentation, and an accumulation of some aromas and flavors that are really quite unique. You also get a very slow lag phase which favors the accumulation of glycerine or glycerol and that gives you a wine of considerable body at lower alcohol levels.
We harvest probably 90% of what we do with machines. Today's machines, compared with the machines of 15 years ago, are really like comparing today's color t.v.'s to black and white. They do a very good job and allow us to work in a hurry or to be very selective in for example a warmer vintage at Margaret River. Ther window of opportunity might be 24 hours, and if you're waiting around for a team of people, you can miss that. So machine-harvesting very important to us. With machine harvesting we have adequate labor; without it, we'd be in dire straits. But I emphasize: we don't use machine harvesters as a compromise; they enhance our ability to make good wine.
Some grapes we pick by hand because they will be processed as whole berries, either in fermentation or in the press.
Margaret River is a low-bearing region; our red yields average 2-2 1/2 tons per acre. That's reflected in the concentration you see in our wines. Our oldest vines that produce the grapes for our Cabernet were planted in '70-71. We had another big planting thru '86-7, and another estate in '92-93. We're taking our red grapes from quite mature vineyards, and again, that's reflected in our wines.
Cloudy Bay, we started planting in about 1988. But it's no secret, in the Wairu Valley, phylloxera was detected in 1989 and since then, just about every vine in the valley has probably been replaced; it will be finished in about three years. That's cut back the vine age considerably. In an age of high mechanization, with contractors going from vineyard to vineyard, you've got phylloxera before you know it. There's really no successful way to sterilize a harvester, or a hedger or whatever it is that's come in. Apart from putting up a 6 ft. barbed wire fence around your vineyard, there's nothing you can do but start re-planting with root stocks. It's not a big drama. It costs a lot, but it's not a big drama.
Q: You've done some of what Californians call "Rhone Ranger" type projects with Matarro, Grenache, and Marsanne, and so forth. What drew you to those varietals, and how do you view the success of those efforts?
A: I never thought of myself as a Rhone Ranger. If you look at the guys who are doing it in America, I'll bet you they're all about my age. We went thru college, and everyone was focused on the French classics, and then you look around and you see these old Grenache vines, and you wonder what would happen if you tried to do a decent job with them. They've been making fortified or generic wines; let's give it a try. Which we did. And you can make some great wines, from low-bearing Grenache, Matarro. We don't have the resources they have in California, with those vineyards. We have some.
Q: Will any of the Rhone-varietals wines become available in Japan?
A: Not in the foreseeable future. Cape Mentelle with its association and majority ownership of Veueve Clicquot, will be focused clearly on the classics, Cabernet, Merlot, to a lesser extent, Shiraz, and with the whites, the Semillon, Sauvignon and Chardonnay. That's not to say we won't...I mean, we've got the vines, we'll be making them, but just in very very small quantities. As we do with the Zinfandels, just very small quantities.
Q: So the partnership with LVMH has given impetus toward the palette of wines , in terms of varietals, that you are putting out?
A: Yeah, that was the direction we were headed in anyway. When they bought into the company, they did so because we were doing something relevant to their ambitions. They wanted to make red wine in Australia, and Sauvignon Blanc in NZ. So it was a very natural fit. But to their credit, they don't try to influence our feelings about style in the wines. They give us a very free hand, as a winemaking and a marketing team, in the wines. We're left to make those decisions.
Q: As a big Zin fan, I'm curious to hear where the vines come from, and how that project emerged.
A: From my education in California, I had some background in it; nothing too profound. [.....] In 1990, we sought some help in sourcing a lighter-bearing clone, and we took vines selected in Sonoma, Kelly's Creek, an area in Dry Creek. It was four years in quarantine, and is currently under propagation. We have enough for a five-acre planting in the next year. That's fun. It will remain small production. The French can't get excited about it; it's a genetic thing, I think. They probably find it too alcoholic and to their palates a little coarse.
In the mid to the late 'eighties, as a region, our red styles had probably lightened up a bit. You have to remember that a response to the market. Australians were drinking big, gutsy, red wines right thru the 'seventies. And then some time in the early 'eighties, they started getting headaches, and everybody thought it was the histamine in wines, nothing to do with over-indulgence. And they abandoned red wine overnight. All the wheels fell off the red wagon. We found it very hard to sell those big, concentrated, moderately tannic styles, so we responded; we eased up.
We felt it was something of a compromise, and by the late '80s and certainly now in the '90s, you're seeing much riper, more concentrated wines, like we made in the '70s and early '80s. So I don't think Oz would have any trouble today with anything from '92 onwards. In fact, from '90 onwards. I think he'd be very happy with what we're making. We are-they're lovely, big, ripe wines.
Q: With Cloudy Bay, given the expansion of production, how has style evolved as part of that process-- with the wine gaining broader international appeal and attention?
A: Let's talk about the Sauvignon Blanc. I think the style's pretty close to the wine we first made. The difference is that we have to do less of a balancing act at the winery. I talked earlier about achieving a natural balance in the vineyard, with a better natural acid level, and certainly we can usually achieve at least around 22 degrees, 21 1/2 of sugar, which gives us adequate ripeness and alcohol to make a wine that smells as enticing as Cloudy Bay does, but delivers on the palate because we feel very strongly that wine in essence is a drink. You don't sit around and sniff it all night. So it has to be a very satisfying drink, with flavor and mouth feel. With Cloudy Bay, if we've got a secret, it's being able to deliver that. And that flows through into the other wines in the portfolio.
Q: What is the case production and what do you see as the maximum development?
A: We're always reticent to talk about case numbers, because it's like chucking petrol on a fire. Some people think it's a contrived shortage and it's not. The figures are not big by commercial standards. If I said that at the moment, the total production of Cloudy Bay is about 100,000 that would be pretty close to the mark. A lot of that is Sauvignon Blanc. But when people are struggling to get one case, that makes them annoyed-- who's getting the other thousands of cases? But we're in 20 markets around the world. Australia and the UK are the biggest, the US is probably second, followed by NZ. Japan's an important market, HK is also. The primary market in Europe, outside the UK, is definitely Germany.
In terms of how big can you be, that's something we debate all the time, and I probably won't be around to find out. Mondavi's is bloody huge, and yet the top wines are made without compromise and they're very good. I believe that to maintain a culture within your winery of attention to detail, quality, absolute dedication, competitiveness, I think you don't want to be too big. Work has to be enjoyable and I don't think it is if you're just running a bottling line eleven months of the year. So I would like to see Cloudy Bay stay relatively small in commercial terms.
Q. Tell me about your new projects.
A: Well, we're doing Pinot at Cloudy Bay. Pinot Noir requires mature vines and so our vines are just coming into any form of maturity. Again we have to evolve a style. Pinot is a fairly finicky variety. People call it the Holy Grail of winemaking. Bullshit! But, it's certainly a finicky difficult varietal. At the moment we're just trying to feel our way, 2-3,000 cases; I hope that at some point it will be substantial. I hope it will be in Japan within four years. I hope it'll be in America. As a production team, we'd like to be making a world-class Pinot Noir.
Q. Please describe it for me; I haven't had a chance to taste it.
A: I think it fits in with what you'd call a modern style, made along Burgundian lines. It's not straightforward fruit. It's fruit that has been complexed by malolactic, oak, ageing on yeast lees, wild ferment, and all those secondary components produce a wine of great complexity. But I think the thing most people like in Pinot is the wonderful warmth of alcohol without obvious tannin, and that lovely, silky, full, sweet mouth feel, that finishes with enough chalkiness that you know they've done it right, that the wine's going to last a long time.
Q: Would tell me how your association with Veuve Clicquot evolved?
A: I have always been a minority shareholder and I've been through three different groups of owners as majority shareholders. In 1989, a group of investors who had helped me greatly and been good partners to work with, decided that they would sell the equity that they had and gave me plenty of time to find a buyer.
Through a chance meeting, I found out that Veuve Clicquot was actively looking for wineries in both Australia and NZ. An introduction was arranged and after reasonably prolonged negotiations, Veuve Cliquot bought out the shareholders and took a majority position. They were running a very profitable Champagne business, but the opoprtunities to expand in Champagne were severely limited. They saw opportunities to invest in the New World and show better return perhaps than buying expensive properties in the Old World. They were developing in most major markets subsidiary companies that were developing their distribution and they wanted to be able to add to that distribution high quality wines from the New World. The intention was to either start from scratch or to purchase producers and add those wines to their distribution portfolio.
They've done very well. I think we've been [in Japan] since about '92, distributed by Veuve Clicquot Japan, one of only three wines, I think, distinct from Champagne in their portfolio, and it's working very, very well.
They've been very helpful in having a long view and clear objectives in their investment. They don't pour money in, but they don't take it out either. So if we're a profitable company, we re-invest our profits, and that is very, very good for us, it gives us a lot of confidence. Distribution is working. UK, US, Japan are three very successful examples.
We've also had technical backup in areas of packaging. We're not afraid to ask them for help in the production of our sparkling wine. We don't often have to do it, but if we do, they're forthcoming and supportive.
MD: Thank you for taking the time out for an interview today.
(c) Copyright Melanie Campbell Drane, 1997