Loading...
Back in June, I was invited to spend an evening with a group of wine-lovers in Shanghai, all of whom had a keen interest in New Zealand wine. I decided to take a bottle of 2012 Craggy Range Aroha, the estate’s ultra-premium Pinot Noir, produced from its Te Muna Road vineyard.
A little background on the origins of Aroha. Although Craggy Range’s identity is inextricably linked to Hawkes Bay, when it set out to establish an ambitious Pinot Noir programme, it looked further south, for an area more suited to the production of the variety. Craggy Range settled on the Wairarapa region but, rather than the already established Martinborough area, chose Te Muna, which lies approximately 7km south-east of the Martinborough township. At the time, Te Muna was a newer area and offered large parcels of land for development.
I’m always a bit wary of wine resplendently packaged and in super-heavyweight bottles. It’s a method of packaging too often associated with overwhelmingly ornate or over-oaked wine. Fortunately, the 2012 Aroha that we opened in Shanghai was neither of these, but instead a rather lovely example of aged New Zealand Pinot Noir.
On the long flight back to NZ, I read through the notes from that dinner and then with some curiosity re-visited my tasting notes of other vintages of Aroha I’d had or reviewed. From my notes, it was apparent there didn’t seem to be a strong consistent ‘signature style’ running through the wines.
And on reflection this made sense. Many of Hawkes Bay’s premium wines are produced by winemakers such as Peter Cowley (Te Mata), Chris Scott (Church Road), Paul Mooney (Mission Estate) all of whom have held their positions for several decades. As custodians of legacy wines, it seems they have consistently shaped the style of the wines produced, and if changes needed to be made, were done so with subtle precision.
And these classic Hawke’s Bay reds, those based on Cabernet and Merlot, are also styles that are perhaps not as malleable as Pinot Noir. So variables such as stem inclusion, cold maceration pre-ferment, time on skins post-ferment, type and age of barrel can all significantly affect style. There’s a sensitivity to Pinot and any changes, even seemingly small, can have a big impact. Craggy Range, as opposed to these classic reds, has had a number of winemakers during the twenty-odd years it has been in production. It seems each one had a strong vision for how the wines, especially Aroha, should be produced and therefore had the defining influence on its style.
Once home, I contacted Ben Tombs, Craggy’s Chief Winemaker, to explore this further, talk about the wine and how much freedom each winemaker had to define Aroha’s style. Ben had a better idea, suggesting I travel down to the Wairarapa, taste through every vintage of Aroha produced and have a discussion there.
The Wairarapa
The Wairarapa is New Zealand’s sixth-largest wine region, with just over 1100 hectares under vine. It is made up of three distinct sub-regions; Gladstone, Masterton and the most recognised area, Martinborough. The region is sheltered by the Tararua Range, which separates it from the capital Wellington and its harsher coastal weather. Pinot is well suited for Wairarapa’s dry and warm climate, with on average just under 2000 sunshine hours annually.
But ask any New Zealander to describe the region’s weather and I’d wager they’d all come up with the one word: windy. Powerful north-west föhn winds gather strength as they come down the Tararua Range and can reach 170 kilometres per hour at their strongest. Even the most ardent advocates for the region dolefully acknowledge the impact of these winds, on flowering and therefore yields.
Jonathan Hamlet, National Vineyards Manager for Craggy Range, explained that even though Te Muna is only a ten-minute drive from Martinborough, it lies 50m higher and is appreciably cooler, with colder mornings, more (and harsher) frosts and due to its more elevated nature, windier. These strong winds, when coupled with a cool spring, can severely impact flowering. For example, 4500 tonnes of fruit were harvested after unsettled, windy weather disrupted flowering in November 2023. However, the weather in November 2024 was more settled and 7500 tonnes of fruit was harvested. This volatility in yield must give the winery accountants a severe headache when forecasting budgets.
To underline the point, on the day of my tasting the winds were simply howling through the valley. It had seemed wasteful to open all the wines for just one taster, so we invited my fellow Master of Wine Stephen Wong. Stephen made intermittent dashes out of the door to chase cardboard boxes, left out for recycling, across the lawn.
Craggy Range began producing wines in 2001, launching the Prestige range in 2004 and adding Aroha to the line-up in 2006. The name Aroha is borrowed from the Maori language and means ‘love’ – but can also have a wider meaning to encompass notions of caring and compassion, both for people and their surroundings.
From the outset, Aroha was designed to be a block selection and not a single vineyard wine. The original four blocks were planted in Spring 2000 (Blocks 9, 10, 16 = Dijon clones and Block 19 = Abel clone) on alluvial river terraces made up of greywacke stones mixed with silt and loess. This open texture allows for large root penetration, and the free draining nature assists ripening and fruit concentration. These blocks are close planted at 1.6m x 1.2m with the aim of harvesting at 4 tonnes/hectare.
Hamlet was Chair of Organic Winegrowers NZ for four years and so is understandably a strong advocate for organic viticulture. His focus is to transition all the vineyards to organic status; currently there is no herbicide use under vine, and the aim is to have all the Te Muna Pinot vineyards be organic by 2026 and the whole estate by 2030.
Ben Tombs joined Craggy as Assistant Winemaker in 2001, becoming Chief Winemaker in 2023. His enthusiasm for wine is undeniable, and he has an outward-looking perspective and constantly thinking and challenging the decisions he makes. Having just returned from another visit to Burgundy and the Jura, he was clear that he is focussed on making great NZ Pinot but is also curious about and open to methods and practices of winemakers overseas.
We decided to taste oldest to youngest. Vintages 2006–2008 were made by the late Adrian Baker, 2009–2011 by Rod Easthope, 2012–2018 Matt Stafford, 2019–2023 Julien Grounds; with Ben Tombs fully taking over in 2024.
Ben had put together a table showing the technical details for the wines. It was fascinating to see the variation in alcohol levels (12.9% to 14.6%), whole bunch (0% to 88%) and oak – which went from 18% to 48% and from 9 months to 14 months.
The earliest wines showed a clear variation in style. A combination of young vines, relative inexperience with the vineyards and differing vintage conditions pointed to the winemakers finding their feet. The 2006 was really quite delightful but the 2007 was much more burly, the tannins looking unwieldy, even though almost 20 years old. The next vintages showed a firmness of tannins – a hallmark of Pinots from this part of the world – and the wines displayed quite a bit of extraction and intensity. This worked well in vintages such as 2013 and 2014 but sometimes the style appeared a little overworked; which meant the 2015 and 2017 still looked unresolved. Power at the expense of beauty? Perhaps winemaking techniques that worked for the two classically-structured reds, Le Sol (Syrah) and Sophia (a Merlot-led blend) from the Hawkes Bay Gimblett Gravels vineyards didn’t transfer easily to the more sensitive Wairarapa fruit.
The arrival of Julian Grounds, a highly experienced winemaker who’d worked in Margaret River, Central Otago, Oregon, and the Yarra Valley, heralded another shift in style. No doubt using knowledge gained at Giant Steps, it seemed a lighter touch was at play. The levels of stem inclusion showed marked difference depending on the season (70% in 2020 and none in 2022) whilst oak remained much the same (around 30% new oak for 14 months).
Tasting the 2020 vintage in 2021, I wrote ‘Julien Grounds has weaved a wild yet subtle note into this Pinot, making it less polished than previous vintages, but more attractive as a result. Energetic but still precise with red cherry and plum fruit, crunchy ripe cinnamon-infused tannins and a long, savoury finish’ and I scored the wine highly. But tasting it in September 2025, the wine appeared to have tightened up, with the tannins becoming more noticeable. Perhaps the 2020 vintage is going through a closed phase.
This tasting offered a unique insight into one of New Zealand’s outstanding wines – particularly as we weren't sure a vertical of all of the vintages of Aroha had ever been held before. I felt particularly privileged to have had this opportunity. And it was a real pleasure to sit and discuss the wines with Ben.
My final thoughts on the tasting? It was clear (and no real surprise) that each vintage of Aroha was a reflection of the focus and vision of its winemaker. Today, with Jonathan Hamlet’s diligent vineyard management, there is every reason to believe that Ben with his dedication to his craft will take this wine to another level and add to the Aroha story.
