{"id":2629,"date":"2020-12-22T18:16:37","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T18:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/winefolio.co.nz\/?p=2629"},"modified":"2020-12-22T18:26:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T18:26:31","slug":"winemaker-series-chris-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winefolio.co.nz\/?p=2629","title":{"rendered":"Winemaker series: Chris Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I manage to track down Chris Scott<\/strong>, winemaker at Church Road<\/strong>, who has been on my radar for a while now. I start by asking about how he got started at Church Road, and that I\u2019d read somewhere that it was the first, and only, place he\u2019d worked in the wine industry..?<\/p>

Chris Scott<\/strong>: I had a young family at the same time, so the prospect of three months travelling, doing vintages overseas \u2013 the travelling winemaker thing wasn\u2019t particularly appealing at that time. So I never went overseas and made wine. We\u2019re now owned by Pernod Ricard obviously, so we\u2019ve worked with a number of international people \u2013 there\u2019s connections there. There\u2019s plenty of experience and different influences and viewpoints within the business. And then just the people you talk to. I absolutely recommend to anyone who is getting into wine, to go and get some experience overseas and do some different things. But equally – one thing that\u2019s perhaps not talked about quite so much – I think that to make good wine, more than anything, you have to understand your environment.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WineFolio<\/strong>: You must have a fairly unique perspective then?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: I\u2019d like to think I could move anywhere and make reasonable wine, but you\u2019d never make as good a wine walking into a new region, as you would for having worked in that region for 10-20 years.<\/p>

Understanding what each vineyard delivers. What each individual plot on those vineyards deliver. Variations in soil type. Understanding that if the vintage does \u2018this\u2019, then \u2018that\u2019 often works. And it works for this vineyard but not for that one. If I get dealt these conditions then I know, from past experience, this is what I need to look for. This what I need to \u2018not do\u2019.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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That\u2019s huge. Absolutely, had I gone overseas and done some vintages, that would have added another string to my bow. But likewise, knowing the regions so well, and our vineyards so well, I think is a huge advantage to me as well. You can do a lot with tasting as well, and exposing yourself to those great wines of the world. And keeping an open mind, and talking, reading, drinking! (laughs)<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Do you think you\u2019ll be a \u2018one-club man\u2019, or might you plant your own vineyard somewhere and do your own wines?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Never say never. I\u2019ve no plans at this stage, but I\u2019d be lying if I said that I hadn\u2019t thought about it.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: A step sideways. I mean, you\u2019re in one of the top jobs in New Zealand now, so there\u2019s not too much further \u2018up\u2019 to go?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: I think I\u2019m very lucky to work where I work. Pernod Ricard see their role for Church Road in the portfolio as \u2018fine wine\u2019 so are prepared to invest behind that. Likewise they leave the winemakers alone to get on with what we do. We steer the styles of the wines. I get less interference than any other winemaker I know, unless they own the business. It\u2019s very much \u2018you\u2019re the winemaker, that\u2019s your side of the business\u2026here\u2019s the budget \u2013 don\u2019t spend more than that\u2019.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: So if Church Road gets more promotion as one of Pernod Ricard\u2019s fine wine brands.. will you have to be putting in appearances overseas?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Yes, probably. I\u2019d be lying if I said that\u2019s my favourite part of the job.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: What about judging?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: I\u2019ve done a bit of judging in the past. I\u2019d probably do it more happily now that I\u2019ve got my feet well and truly under the table here I guess. There\u2019s often just a lot of competing priorities.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: With the TOM wines being well recognised now, and with a limited number of vintages available for any winemaker to do their best work\u2026 you can\u2019t really afford to be distracted from that, by other things.<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: I am very aware of that, and conscious of the fact that we are quite a small team. Time is precious, so we do try as much as possible. If a chef cooks a bad steak, he just throws it away and starts again. Whereas if you have a bad vintage you have to wait twelve months.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: What\u2019s the best thing about making wine? What gives you joy from that?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: I think there\u2019s different aspects of it. I really like that process of evolving the styles of the wines. We\u2019re never resting on our laurels. Always trying to get better and I have a picture in my head of were I want to get to with the wines and what would be the ideal. But I think that those goalposts slowly move as your ideas change. You gain more experience, you taste more wines, you get a bit older and your tastes change. Then that ideal goal tends to evolve slightly as well. We\u2019re always just trialling.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Is there a sense that you\u2019re making what you think is good, and hoping that everyone else likes it?<\/p>

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CS<\/strong>: Yes (laughs). I tend to think it\u2019s a little bit price point reflective. At the lower price points, I\u2019m trying to make something that most people will enjoy. If people are going to go into a supermarket and pick a wine up off the shelf for $15-20 and take it home and it\u2019s full of flavour and it\u2019s textural, and it\u2019s kind of punchy\u2026 people are going to enjoy that. When you get to the higher end of the market, the wines that we make are very much steered by what I want to drink! Again, it\u2019s about having that picture of what that perfect wine is, in your mind, and trying to get as close as possible to attaining that.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: And do the two ends of the market have to be quite different wines? Do the top end wines almost have to be quite \u2018difficult, complicated\u2019 almost? Harder to understand? Otherwise you may just as well have the $20 one?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Yes probably, to some extent. As people\u2019s tastes in wines evolve, and certainly as mine did. When I first starting drinking wine I thought massive, big, oaky chardonnay was great. And I thought Barossa Shiraz was great. And I though Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was great. And they\u2019re all just like a punch in the face, basically. Over the top and in your face wines without a lot of subtlety or nuance.<\/p>

But as my tastes evolved, those wines became boring. I work on the assumption that most people who are serious about fine wine are in the same boat. You start your wine drinking journey and as you learn more about it your tastes become a bit more refined. You prize elegance, balance, complexity and subtlety more, rather than being smacked around the head.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: What do you think makes a great wine? Is it balance? My first rule is \u2018delicious\u2019.<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Yes, I guess so. The only think I\u2019d say is you can have a wine that\u2019s balanced, but boring. And I think a wine needs to be more than balanced \u2013 it needs a hook, it needs some character. It needs something beyond that. It\u2019s like you could listen to an absolutely perfect musician who plays with no soul, and it\u2019s just boring to listen to. And a musician who brings soul, emotion and character into the music, and may not be the most technically proficient musician in the world.. I know which one I\u2019d rather listen to.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: What\u2019s different about a TOM \u2013 compared to, say a Grand Reserve, or the \u2018One\u2019 wines?<\/p>

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CS<\/strong>: Tom is the Grand Cru basically. Pretty much everything at that Grand Reserve, One and TOM level has no expense spared in the vineyard. They all get that \u2018Rolls Royce\u2019 treatment in terms of thinning and canopy management. But then within that you\u2019re always going to get parcels of land that naturally perform better. And that may not necessarily be the same parcel of land every year.\u00a0<\/p>

Within that we\u2019ve got some options where we can barrel age all the wines separately and taste through \u2013 which we\u2019re about to do this week actually for the 2020s. And then pick out the very best of the best. And that will be TOM<\/strong>. With \u2018One\u2019 what we\u2019re really looking for is not necessarily better than Grand Reserve, but something that is a very good reflection of one of our vineyards, and why we like the wine from that site.<\/p>

And then the other thing that we do with the Chardonnay is we press them all directly to barrel. So every single barrel is a separate press pass of each parcel of fruit. We get down to barrel by barrel selection when we get to TOM, and it\u2019s invariably the first few barrels off the press. That gives you a lot more fineness on the palate, and a tighter, more linear profile with higher acidity, lower pH, which means those wines tend to age very well as well.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: What\u2019s different about Hawke\u2019s Bay?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: The interesting thing about Hawke\u2019s Bay<\/strong> is that we talk about the region, and other than Gimblett Gravels<\/strong> and to a lesser extent the Bridge Pa triangle<\/strong> perhaps, we don\u2019t talk about sub-appellations. But Hawke\u2019s Bay is a big region \u2013 it\u2019s an area about the size of Lebanon. We talk about Hawke\u2019s Bay in an area that in South Australia would encompass the Adelaide Hills, the Barossa Valley, the Eden Valley. They are all talked about as separate appellations because they are separate altitudes and climatically quite different. And Hawke\u2019s Bay is the same.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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If you go up to Crownthorpe Terraces<\/strong> \u2013 we\u2019re growing up there at about 1250 growing degree days, which is quite cold. At Tukituki Valley<\/strong> we\u2019re about 1350 growing degree days, and Bridge Pa and Gimblett Gravels is around 1500 growing degree days. You\u2019re spanning just about the cooler end of Burgundy right up to Bordeaux, as growing degree days.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Central Hawke\u2019s Bay \u2013 is that going to be a new thing?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: It\u2019s possibly under explored at the moment. There\u2019s a lot of gravelly soils down there, and limestone. It\u2019s actually drier. If you\u2019re down in Waipawa and Waipukurau along the Tukituki River valley it\u2019s drier. Lime Rock<\/strong> have shown you can make some pretty good wines from their site.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: Where does Church Road sit in the New Zealand world of wines? Do you think you\u2019re people\u2019s \u2018favourite label\u2019 for example? I\u2019m asking because I do often hear that..<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: We get people telling us that Church Road is their favourite brand, so\u2026! (laughs) One of the things we always, always aspire to do, is that every price point we try to over-deliver. We do a lot of comparative tastings, to make sure we know our markets, and what\u2019s on offer at that price point. If your Church Road Chardonnay\u2019s on special for $16 \u2013 we want that to be better than any other $16 Chardonnay that\u2019s on the shelf. That\u2019s subjective to a degree. It\u2019s machine harvested rather than hand harvested, but we are still using free-run juice, it\u2019s got oak influence, malo and lees stirring. We\u2019ve tried to keep it flavoursome.<\/p>

There\u2019s a tendency with a lot of low-end Chardonnays to strip all the oak out of it, but if anything we\u2019ve been pushing the oak a bit. Almost a nod towards the old school Chardonnay. You\u2019re not talking about wines that people are going to sit and pontificate about. For most people they just want some flavour, and if we can offer something with a bit of character, that\u2019s not necessarily the most refined wine in the world, but offers something that most wines in that category wouldn\u2019t offer.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: What do you think is next for New Zealand \u2013 or what should we promoting to the world as our next step? Do you think there\u2019s almost too many up-and-coming things \u2013 that it would be hard to focus the message?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: If you talk about Hawke\u2019s bay being a big place \u2013 then look at the climatic and soil variations across New Zealand. There are a number of places suitable to grow grapes and can make very good wine, albeit in different styles. One variety that performs well across New Zealand and is starting to get a lot of attention in the right circles \u2013 from a critic point of view certainly \u2013 is Chardonnay. And that to me is very very promising. And I think our good Chardonnays stack up with the very best in the world.<\/p>

Syrah is small but it punches so far above it\u2019s weight. That International Wine Challenge<\/strong> where we\u2019ve just won the International Syrah Trophy<\/strong>, I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s the fifth year in a row that Hawke\u2019s Bay Syrah has won that Trophy.<\/p>

For something that\u2019s 2.5% of Hawke\u2019s Bay vineyard area, the accolades that we get internationally for that variety is incredible.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: What about sparkling, because I believe that a day will come where New Zealand makes the best sparkling wines in the world.<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: We make just a small amount for the Cellar Door at the moment, and that\u2019s the only one we make. But then our parent company makes the Cordon Mumm Marlborough<\/strong>, and the Deutz<\/strong>. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve tried the Mumm Marlborough, but it\u2019s delicious. It\u2019s really good.\u00a0<\/p>

And there\u2019s some really good Pinot Noir outside of Central as well \u2013 there\u2019s some very good Pinots around the country. I was always a big fan of Martinborough Pinot.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: Yes \u2013 so we have a few stories to tell, and that can be a distraction.<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: From a marketing point of view, yes \u2013 but then the counter to that, and I know they\u2019ve had a lot more time to educate people about regional differentiation in a country like France. It\u2019s not one wine story is it? If you look at the range of climatic conditions across France, except for when you get right into the southern areas \u2013 you could easily sit New Zealand climates in there, from northern Burgundy to Bordeaux. I think there\u2019s some merit to be seen, in the long run, as a fine wine country, and not hang our hat on a variety.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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WF<\/strong>: is there anything else that you would like to make, that you haven\u2019t, or don\u2019t make here? You mention Pinot, for example \u2013 have you got a great barrel of that hidden somewhere?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Funny you mention that. We got some great fruit from a single site in Lowburn, Central Otago<\/strong> in 2019 actually \u2013 so we have got a bit of Pinot tucked away. We\u2019ll be buying a little bit more in 2021. Just small compared to the rest of the range..<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Nothing else \u2013 something Italian, because you\u2019ve got a few bits and bobs?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Yes, we have Tempranillo<\/strong>, Marzemino<\/strong>. The one I\u2019d quite like to have a play with just to see what we could coax out of it, would be Nebbiolo<\/strong>. Warren and Lorraine have planted a wee bit of Nebbiolo on their hillside, but only enough for a barrel.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Any advice you\u2019d give your younger self? That\u2019s publishable?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Looking back on it, there was a Catch-22 because the opportunities here developed very quickly but also kept me very busy. I was running to catch up all the time. I was investing a lot of time here. And I would have loved to have gone and done a couple of overseas vintages and seen that. But with one thing and another it never quite worked out. I guess we all tend to look for the next thing, and what we haven\u2019t got.<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: I think with COVID-19 we\u2019ve had a chance to reflect a bit about stuff like that.<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: I think we have. I know at home it\u2019s changed our perspective on things. We were looking at renovations \u2013 increasing the square metres of our house.. and now we look at that and go \u2018why?\u2019<\/p>

Winemaking\u2019s not a work from home type of job, but I ended up working semi-remotely for two and a half weeks. Over harvest we were trying to keep the winery and vineyard teams separate. I crossover as I\u2019m running around in the vineyards doing fruit assessments and things like that. I ended up doing fruit assessments and then going home and doing all the harvest planning. And then if there was any tasting that had to be done, our operations winemaker was organising a sample basket and dropping it in the park for me and I\u2019d go and pick it up. Trying to not have any link between separate shifts, and vineyard separate from winery.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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It was hard for us. We found that things we would do face to face, we have massive whiteboards all over the place covered in magnets \u2013 trying to do that remotely and build systems for that on the fly. Sitting at desk at home doing 15-hour days basically. The only good thing about it was my partner works at a school, so she was definitely at home, doing nothing but baking and cooking; and apart from vineyard visits in the morning the rest of the day I was sitting at a desk, and not leaving it. Just got brought food, and it\u2019s the only harvest I\u2019ve ever put on weight. I put on two kilos and I normally lose about five!<\/p>

WF<\/strong>: Is there anybody that you wish could try your wine?<\/p>

CS<\/strong>: Be pretty cool if Tom McDonald could try it.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I manage to track down Chris Scott, winemaker at Church Road, who has been on my radar for a while now. 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