Innovation Key Ingredient for Wine From planting wild flowers among the vines to encourage bees and cut mowing costs, to barcoding vineyard blocks at harvest time, innovation is at the heart of Pernod Ricard Winemakers New Zealand. “Innovation has been a key driver 44 APRIL 2016 for us throughout our history,” says the company’s c h i e f winemaker, Patrick Materman. “For Brancott Estate, it began when we first planted vines on Brancott Vineyard in 1973. For Church Road, it goes back even further, as one of the oldest wineries in New Zealand and the first to craft high-quality wines in the style of the great wines of France.” A focus for Brancott Estate has been on its highly-rated Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc range.“Arguably the largest innovation programme in recent years was our ‘icon’ project which started with the idea of creating a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that would rival the top wines around the world,” Materman says. “We started this project by questioning every aspect of the winemaking process, from the soil the vines were planted in through to the time in bottles before the wine was made available. “We undertook an extensive research programme on thiols, the compounds in Sauvignon Blanc that give its distinctive aromatics, looking at how the grapes were harvested, pressed and fermented. This knowledge around thiols has had a major influence on Patrick Materman
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