Winemaker Dave Sutton never thought he’d settle on home soil in New Zealand for work, having spent years living abroad chasing harvests and learning about wine in South Australia, Chile, the USA, Spain and France – but he’s gone and done just that.
Since 2010 Sutton has called Central Otago in New Zealand home. Six years ago, he joined Te Kano and the Lloyd family as their chief winemaker – the rest is a focus on a variety of wines from their iconic pinot noir to chardonnays and now experimenting with Beaujolais and Gamay.
“Those years I spent travelling abroad showed me that there are a lot of different ways to approach the blank canvas of winemaking,” says Dave Sutton.
“You can take a varietal and make it any number of ways, but even if you have the same stylistic goal, there’s so many different avenues you can take to get to your desired result and that’s the part I love about the winemaking journey,” he says.
Sutton is all about bringing an open mind to his winemaking approach; he prefers to let the fruit speak for itself too.
“People talk about terroir being about climate and soil but it’s cultural too; it’s about how we approach and make wine and drink it,” he says.
“That plays a big part of what goes into making New Zealand wine. We are forward thinking and not afraid to try new things. We aren’t too focused on rules and regulations when it comes to how you can and can’t grow grapes and make wine,” says Sutton.
He says the key to a successful vineyard comes down to a good relationship with the vineyard’s manager.
“Good relationships are certainly important,” he says.
“I focus my time and energy into the vineyard, keep an eye on growing season, not just harvest. I develop a knowledge bank of information from when the temperature spikes, to what the rain is doing and what the grapes look like through the seasons. From there I figure what makes the wine special. It’s a connected approach between the vineyard and the winery is really important,” says Sutton.
In New Zealand, Pinot Noir was only first commercially bottled in 1987, and now has around 1.5 million cases exported annually. Sutton loves making and drink pinot noir; he’s all about creating an elegant red.
“Pinot Noir at its finest is truly amazing,” says Dave Sutton.
“I enjoy making a great pinot noir, but the approach to growing it and making it has changed in the 12 years I have been in this area,” he explains.
“People are realising we aren’t in a cool climate region. With ripeness happening quickly, it’s about trying to achieve balance in the wines. I find the winemaking is more about a willingness to have leaf cover during a growth period, and embracing shading rather than full sun exposure too. I think making pinot noir is leaning more toward age-ability because some of those early vintages I tasted in early 2000s didn’t age in a way which was nice,” says Sutton.
The winemaker is all about embracing the abundance of fruit that thrives in this climate too.
“Other regions would love to have what we have in Central Otago,” says Sutton.
“I don’t try to fight that fruit character. It’s a natural part of what we do. When I first started making pinot noir, I was interested in how we push towards a savoury profile and get out of this fruit forward spectrum. The fear was the wine would be seen as too simple. I think you have to embrace the version that the wine is traveling and embrace the character all the way,” he adds.
As a result, the New Zealand varietal is fruity, softer and more expressive than wine produced in the grape’s native home of Burgundy. It is predominantly grown in the cooler southern regions of the country including Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson, North Canterbury and Central Otago.
