Q. Can you give me an overview of Marlborough and why the wines are so special?Marlborough is a very good place to grow grapes, it is warm but not hot, we have lots of sunshine, nice cool nights. These climatic conditions preserve both the aromatics and acid profile in the wine, which is perfect for Sauvignon Blanc. And it is also perfect for Pinot Noir, which we are very lucky to have as our second grape variety. Our Sauvignon Blanc is a style nobody else around the world makes, even though they are trying to emulate us, while Pinot Noir requires very exacting climatic conditions to succeed. None of the wines and varietals we make have any sort of winemaking trickery, we really keep it nice and simple.What makes Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc so bright and aromatic is the fairly young soils, the climatic conditions, the clones we have and our approach to viticulture. The high UV is said to encourage thicker skins and the phenol compounds within the skins which give the passionfruit flavours. I don’t think there is one answer, but rather a range of factors.The essential qualities, the brightness, the lovely aromatics, are all pre-determined in the vineyard. We look after the grapes, harvest them when their flavour is optimal, put them in a tank and sometimes it is wild yeast, sometimes added yeast in the barrel, things which change the style of a wine. The less we have to do in the vineyard in terms of crop manipulation, if we have an average flowering which means we don’t do a lot of thinning after crop set, the fruit comes in ripe and clean, we don’t have to do much in the winery, and more importantly the wine quality is wonderful.Q. How did Lawson’s Dry Hills get started?It is a really neat story. Ross and Barbara Lawson bought a few hectares where the winery is now in the 70s. Ross paid for it by possum hunting, and Barbara used to salt the hides and they would sell the possum skins. Ross started looking after a vineyard and doing viticultural work in the late 70s. A few larger companies were getting established to make cask wine, and one approached Ross to plant Gewurztraminer. At the time he would have been thinking, ‘what is Gewurztraminer’, but said ‘yes we’ll do it’. They planted it in 1981-82, then in the early 90s, they were told ‘we don’t want your grapes anymore’. Ross was fairly strong-willed, thought he grew pretty good grapes, so he started a wine company. 1992 was the first harvest, they made Gewurztraminer from their own block, and being Marlborough some Sauvignon Blanc, and Ross only ever drank Chardonnay, so a few barrels of Chardonnay.Q. How did they expand the vineyards and ownership?The initial vineyard wasn’t large at all, probably about 5 hectares, and it is even smaller now because we put the winery and warehousing in. In the early years Sauvignon Blanc was an amazing crop, you would harvest it, and it sold immediately at a very good price. We could be bottling in August, have the cash in the door, buy some vines and land and put them in the ground. That was how fast things were going. We’ve slowly acquired vineyards and brought land, planted, and leased some blocks as well. We are just planting another block over in the Awatere which is very promising.Q. Are you selective in the blocks you are buying?Definitely. Sauvignon Blanc tastes different depending on where it is grown, so we like the geographical diversity and what that brings to the wine. In our estate Sauvignon Blanc we celebrate being able to make a blend from a number of vineyards, and the complexity that brings. A spread of vineyards is more interesting, and it also spreads risk. Being in a cool climate we can have problems with disease and rainfall over harvest. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does happen the grapes are really susceptible to rain, especially the riper they are. With the geographic spread we harvest over a month. If we predict rain several days in advance, we quickly harvest anything that is ripe, have a few days off and let things dry, and then carry on. The grapes that were less ripe don’t even notice the rain.We are enamoured with the Awatere if we can get a nice patch of land. You can harvest really ripe and still retain green characters, and get everything from tropical, melon and passionfruit right through to green bell pepper and jalapeno characters.Q. What are different soils and aspects of vineyards in the main growing areas?The main Wairau Valley on the northern side of the river is very stony gravels with not a lot of topsoil. As you come across to the southern side of the river you have a lot of clay influence. This changes as you move across the valley and into the Southern Valleys, and over the millennia the rivers changed paths and there are smaller rivers as well, so there is a diversity of soils from pure gravel to pure clay, and everything in between. Most of it is a mixture and the proportions change. However, we like everything grown on clay, but particularly Pinot Noir, the clay seems to give real guts to the wine. Towards the coast is more silt based.The Awatere is quite a mix of soil profiles, it depends where you are. It has the same sunshine hours but is a bit more windswept, which is where the greenness comes from, and is generally later ripening. All of Marlborough is maritime influence, and it is also siltier closer to the coast. And really close to the coast there is a saline influence as well.It is important with Sauvignon Blanc to tell these stories and show that the wines from different areas are different. One thing that amazes people coming through the winery is that Sauvignon Blanc is not all the same, we ferment each batch separately and there are a vast array of styles and characters. Appellation Marlborough is helping us tell our story, and say ‘we have a special patch of land here’ which produces these characters that are worth recognizing, and emphasizes the care and attention the little guys give, which is part of the future.Q How have viticulture and winemaking evolved in your time at LDH?We have got a lot better at adapting and making decisions on the fly. When I first started, both in viticulture and winemaking, it was almost prescriptive like we were following a recipe. Whereas now we are more nuanced, ‘this vineyard gives us these characters, and we have this year after year experience,’ so we know, for example, the blocks which are best to harvest a little early because it never hits the passionfruit highs that some of the other blocks do. So we are able to drill down and make the most of each block.In winemaking the biggest thing has been the ability to invest in equipment which is state-of-the-art and reliable. We have our own harvester, and the capacity to do what we want, when we want, at the speed we want to maximize the quality of fruit we have on the vine. We have good equipment in the winery, and invested a lot of money in the front end, and our ability to press the grapes. So if we need to we can do nearly everything in about 10 days.One of the key decisions is picking. Once you harvest the grapes, their potential is set. We can make them worse in the winery, but not better.Q. What impact do you see with the aging of the vines in the quality of the fruit?Our Pinot Noir just gets better and better, largely due to vine age. In 2019 we looked at the wines we were making, did a review with a consultant coming in to taste them with us, and I travelled through Burgundy, and spent a lot of time over the years talking with members of the Family of 12* about their wines. The holy grail is the fruit flavours reflect the region you’re from, and we have such lovely brightness and acidity. Then the question is how do you frame that? In a big tannic framework, or do we want to have beautiful concentration and a bit more softness, which is the style we’ve moved towards since 2020. However, I don’t think we could have done that with the younger vines.With Sauvignon Blanc we are just starting a replanting program, because some vines are nearly 25 years old and the crop level and quality of the fruit are declining. It is a mixture of things, we have a bit of trunk vine disease in some of the blocks, and also age. We aren’t alone, there is quite a lot of replanting of Sauvignon Blanc going on in Marlborough. The new vineyard in Awatere is planted on drought-tolerant rootstock because we see the future being drier.Q. What’s the guiding philosophy for sustainability?A. In general, as an industry, we do a very good job. At LDH, we have always been Sustainable Wine NZ certified. We then decided to take it one step further and acquire ISO14001. It took us a long time to get there, but on the back of doing ISO there was a strong positive response from the marketplace: ‘this is great, we’re really impressed with what you do.’ Part of the ISO system is about continuous improvements, so carbon neutral became an important and logical next step. We are currently the only New Zealand wine producer to hold both ISO14001 (Environmental Management) and ISO14064 (carbonzero) accreditations.For me personally and the staff at Lawson’s sustainability is something that mirrors our values. You need to have that level of buy-in, because verification is expensive and time consuming with a lot of work involved in the details. We feel positive about what we are doing, and have always been very positive about the quality of the wine.*A group of 12 family-run premium wineries in New Zealand established in 2005 to exchange information and collaborate promoting their wines at home and around the world.Appellation MarlboroughLarge-scale planting of vineyards in Marlborough’s Wairau Valley only began in 1973 with Montana Wines. In the 1980s Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc put New Zealand on the international wine stage, and the growth became exponential. Today the nearly 30,000ha of vines account for two-thirds of all vineyards in New Zealand, and 85 per cent of exports. The driver is Sauvignon Blanc which accounts for 85 per cent of all wines, followed by elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and aromatics. Marlborough has 3 main sub-regions, the Southern Valleys, Wairau Valley and Awatere Valley, with diverse soils and meso-climates.Appellation Marlborough maphttps://www.appellationmarlboroughwine.co.nz/introducing-the-wine-map-of-marlborough