N.Z. wines

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32568, 30 March 1971, Page 10

N.Z. wines

“Before 1970 ends it seems timely to draw attention to a 1969 ‘first’ which has only recently been recorded: the consumption in New Zealand of a gallon of wine to every man, woman and child.” So said a leading article in “The Press” in December, adding happily for those who feared for the future adults of this country, however much they rejoiced for the growth of the wine industry, that the figure was a statistician’s one, and that in fact the adults more than likely drank the children’s share as well as their own.

The wine was both imported and produced in New Zealand. This supplement aims to give some picture of the production of wine in New Zealand, a rapid-growth industry as the article by Dick Scott on this page of the supplement indicates.

Not that establishing the quality of wines is a straightforward business. The so-called premium wines are a minor part of the production of any winemaking country. It is possible to talk of the vintage years, or of the product of a particular vineyard in a particular year, and it may be that these wines are greater wines. But it is ludicrous to spoil one’s enjoyment of the bulk of wines produced in this country by letting the fruit of the grape turn sour because there are other wines.