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From issue: May 2000

Sniffing Wine with a Sense of History

by John Parker

At the Church Road Winery, Taradale, the history of winemaking in New Zealand is recalled and celebrated.

Sniff your wine with a sense of history and the bouquet seems richer. Every glass of New Zealand's fine wines is a toast to the pioneers whose dedication made our local winemaking industry possible.

The Church Road Winery in Taradale, near Napier, is guaranteed to imbue your mouthfuls of wine with a sense of craft and heritage.

The exterior of the Tom McDonald Cellar at Taradale. Photo: Montana Wines

The area has almost 150 years of wine history, starting in 1857 with a government surveyor called Henry Stokes Tiffen. Tiffen had a prophetic eye for good winemaking country, purchasing and growing grapes in a winery he named Greenmeadows. Modeled on what was then the latest overseas methods, it was described in the late 1890s as the premier vineyard of New Zealand.

Winemaking accelerated through the influence of the Marist Brothers at the Meeanee Mission, which purchased considerable areas for viticulture. A former lay brother at the Mission, Bartholomew Steinmetz, a citizen of Luxembourg, bought two hectares from the Tiffen holding, planted Mission cuttings, and in 1901 commenced winemaking with a holy zeal on his own account under the name Taradale Vineyards Ltd.

Twenty years later Tom McDonald, the acknowledged father of quality New Zealand red wine, stepped onto this nation's winemaking stage – at the unfatherly age of fourteen. He began by assisting Steinmetz in the production of fortified wines, Taradale Vineyard's stock-in-trade. Five years on, the nineteen-year-old McDonald bought out Steinmetz.

The legendary Tom McDonald. Photo: Montana Wines

Steady expansion of his business and wine interests followed, including the building in 1948 of a modem winery in Church Road. For more than 50 years, until 1982, McDonald untiringly pursued winemaking excellence, especially in the post-war years, when he made New Zealand's first quality red wines. Along the way, he was mentor to, and employer of, a veritable who's who of the New Zealand wine industry, including Peter Hubscher, managing director of Montana Wines, and Barrie Browne, manager of the Church Road Winery.

The Church Road Winery ceased production in 1981 and was placed on the market in 1989. Montana Wines, keenly aware of the winery's long association with Tom McDonald and other winemaking pioneers, bought and refurbished the complex to provide outstanding facilities for the production and appreciation of premium estate wines, re-christening the winery in recognition of its illustrious winemaker.

To help achieve its goal to make world-class red wine, the newly dubbed McDonald Winery availed itself of European traditions and knowledge. In 1991 it enlisted the help of Cordier, owner of several prestigious Bordeaux wineries. The fruitful partnership between Montana and Cordier has helped to evolve wines that became progressively richer, more complex and more sophisticated.

But the old days of Steinmetz and McDonald were not forgotten. In 1990 Peter Hubscher and Barrie Browne began to gather a collection of winemaking artifacts at the winery. In 1996 plans were drawn to turn the old underground concrete vats at the McDonald Winery into a museum displaying the artifacts and other memorabilia, along with depictions of older methods of winemaking in New Zealand and Europe.

The winemaking scenes were brought to life by mannequins made by local sculptor Owen Yeomans, while local builder John Briggs carried out the reconstructions which accommodate the displays.

An historic corking machine in the winery museum. Photo: Montana Wines

Opened in 1998, the museum takes the visitor down wine's memory lane. It's vintage stuff: Champagne-making as it was done at the end of the last century, old bottling and cork-making machines, Steinmetz's original grape-crusher, cooper and smithy in congenial barrel-making partnership, the extraordinary textures and colours of the vat walls created by residue from years of sherry storage.

Last year Montana released a pinnacle red wine, called simply Tom. This tribute to the great winemaker coincided with the opening of the Tom McDonald Cellar and a change of the winery name back to Church Road Winery. Designed in a regional French-influenced style, the Tom McDonald Cellar is well-stocked with fine traditional details such as wrought ironwork, copper light fittings, thick plaster walls and substantial hardwood beams. It holds more than 218 barrels as well as providing a first-class venue for hosting guests and small-scale cultural performances.

It seems fitting that the Tom McDonald Cellar is perched on top of the wine vats of the original winery, now used to hold barrels of maturing cabernet and merlot. Modern winemaking - and our enjoyment of its products - stand on the shoulders of the wine pioneers.

John Parker is a free-lance journalist.