50 Years

Daniel Le Brun kickstarted Marlborough’s sparkling production in the 1980s

To celebrate a half century of Marlborough wine, BRENDON BURNS recalls the 'major challenges and monumental achievements of the 1980s.

WHEN DANIEL Le Brun told locals that one day the whole Wairau Valley would be covered in grapes they muttered ‘crazy Frenchman’. The winemaker, with generations of Champagne production in his veins, brought 50,000 cuttings to Marlborough in 1980, having grown them at his nursery in Rotorua, where he’d met his wife, Adele. The couple purchased 12 hectares in Renwick (where Mahi is today) for the winery, and Daniel began developing and managing vineyards for absentee owners while waiting for his vines to grow and specialised equipment to arrive.

Corbans had bought land in Marlborough in 1980 and the following year Selaks and Nobilo partnered to buy land in Hammerichs Rd for the Drylands vineyard. In the early 80s Ross and Barbara Lawson planted their first grapes on Alabama Rd, seeding the Lawson’s Dry Hills label they would launch a decade later.

In 1984, the first record of phylloxera in Marlborough occurred on a vineyard where replacement untreated plants had been brought in from Nelson. Vineyard machinery then spread the louse from vineyard to vineyard.

The same year Brent Marris, whose father John had sourced the first land for vineyards 11 years earlier, became the first Marlborough person to become a qualified wine maker, after studying in Adelaide. With sheep and beef farming suddenly marginal after the loss of subsidies, Peter Vavasour started planting 12ha of grapes in the mid-1980s, opening the industry in the Awatere Valley.

The first Marlborough Wine & Food Festival kicked off in February 1985, with visitors bussed around different vineyards. Later in the year, Rex and Paula Brook-Taylor decide to set up their own winery after being told Corbans no longer needed their Riesling grapes. David Hohnen and winemaker Kevin Judd launched Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc in 1985 to international acclaim. That significant year also saw growers paid to pull out vines, which was a game changer for Marlborough, says Ivan Sutherland (see page 11).

In 1986 – and the following two years – Hunter’s Sauvignon Blanc put Marlborough on the map with

successive gold medals in the UK Sunday Times awards. This year also helped Marlborough focus on producing quality wine, notably Sauvignon Blanc, after the Government paid growers to pull out less suitable varieties.

The next year, Hunter’s winemaker Almuth Lorenz established her Merlen Wines winery, Villa Maria bought land in Marlborough, and Mike and Diane Ponder secured 34ha of land on New Renwick Rd to plant Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and olives. In 1998, the Stitchbury brothers began planting Jackson Estate and Grove Mill was started by Gerald Hope and others.

By the end of the decade, Marlborough was clearly established as a wine region. John and Brigid Forrest had planted their first vines, the three partners in Lake Challis bought land in Renwick. To cap it all, as 1990 dawned, Queen Elizabeth visited Montana’s Brancott vineyard.

From the Wairau Sheds to Cloudy Bay

Ivan Sutherland with Cloudy Bay Nursery Manager Mart Verstappen. Photo Kevin Judd

Ivan Sutherland was born connected to land and water. He grew up in a farming family near the Wairau rowing sheds, just a few strokes from Cloudy Bay, a name he would later help make world-famous.

Ivan studied agriculture, valuation, and farm management at Lincoln University, before joining the New Zealand rowing eight, which won bronze in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In 1979 he and wife Margaret bought 20 hectares of land (at $3,200 per hectare) off Bill Walsh on Dog Point Road, in partnership with Ivan’s cousin Robin Sutherland and Robin’s wife Bernice, who they later bought out. Müller Thurgau was planted the first year, followed by Riesling and Mendoza Chardonnay. “We have still got some Mendoza on its own roots for nostalgic reasons,” Ivan says. He retired from rowing when the Moscow Olympics was boycotted in 1980, and then set about valuing much of Marlborough for the Valuation Department, before starting a private valuation and farm management consultancy. When Lex Hayward joined him in partnership, taking on most of the valuation work, Ivan could concentrate on clients associated with the emerging wine industry.

In 1985, David Hohnen from Margaret River’s Cape Mentelle, asked Ivan to do some consultancy work on land values and vineyard development costs, having just purchased a large block of land off Corbans on Jacksons Road. He’d come after tasting Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc with some New Zealand producers at his West Australian winery. Under the prevailing overseas investment rules, David needed New Zealand investors in the deal, so Ivan and Margaret, with banker Chris Simmonds, purchased around 8ha, as did Maree and David Leonard, Kevin and Kimberley Judd, and Allan and Cathy Scott, while Cloudy Bay Vineyards retained 30ha.

Grapes were sourced from Corbans for the first few vintages, but Ivan oversaw viticultural expansion after becoming the company viticulturist in 1986. “David made it attractive for me,” he says. Lex took over the valuation practice. Along with developing Cloudy Bay’s land holding, another early task was finding contract growers. Ivan and Margaret jumped in, along with the Judds, Leonards, Scotts, John and Pip Hoare, David and Val Rose, Phillip and Ngaire Neal, and Mike and Robyn Tiller. Sauvignon Blanc was obviously the focus, but also included existing plantings of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, the latter proving hard to ripen.

The early to mid-80’s brought challenging times. A glut of lower-quality wine led to the Labour Government paying growers to pull out vines in 1985. While Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay benefitted most, through their greater vineyard area at the time, it was a game changer for Marlborough. People began to plant Sauvignon Blanc, in particular.

Adding momentum was a change in how grape prices were set. Ivan had been among those representing large grower groups across Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay, and Gisborne in negotiations with the large wine companies, principally Montana chief executive Peter Hubscher and his top Auckland lawyer. “Their reading of an economic return to the grower was fundamentally different to ours,” Ivan says. The Commerce Commission, after a lengthy hearing, ruled this was collective bargaining and disallowed the practice. “And it was probably the best thing that happened to the industry,” Ivan says. “Even though I fought against it at the time.”

Marlborough’s emerging name for Sauvignon Blanc saw growers better rewarded. Ivan had first planted Sauvignon Blanc on his own blocks in 1984 and for over a decade supplied much of the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc blend. “There wasn’t a whole lot of Sauvignon Blanc around for quite a while.”

Adding to the challenges of the 80’s was the discovery of phylloxera in Marlborough, Ivan says. “People were absolutely horrified. One could liken it to Covid. Everyone was banning vehicle access, meticulously cleaning, washing equipment, but the horse had bolted.”

Competition for rootstock saw Cloudy Bay establish a nursery, allowing for the gradual replanting of company and growers’ vineyards with phylloxera-resistant rootstock. Also, in the late 80’s, French Champagne house Veuve Clicquot became perhaps the first European investor of scale in Marlborough, buying 100ha off Pat Hammond near Renwick. Within a year, Veuve Clicquot purchased 80% of Cloudy Bay and Cape Mentelle, with the block then transferred to Cloudy Bay for management and planting. Cloudy Bay and Marlborough were now world-famous.