SINGLED OUT

It’s a hot topic in winemaking, but what does the term “single vineyard wine” mean? And does it even matter? Jonathan Brookes thinks it might.

W hy does it matter if the grapes that made the wine I’m drinking came from a single vineyard?

Because wine tastes different depending on where the grapes that go into it are grown, and different vineyards give different characteristics to wine. We drink wine for pleasure, but it’s also valued because it’s a reflection of the place it comes from.

In Europe, the idea that place gives a unique signature to wine is heavily codified. As I wrote about in a column on how to read a wine label, putting the name of a place on a bottle is protected by law, and with that comes fairly rigid regulations and standards. The more specific about its geographical origins a wine is, the more unique it is and the more it is prized. So for example, grand cru burgundy is not just from a region, or a village, but from a single field on the side of a specific slope. It can only be from that place. Outside of the stiff confines of places such as Burgundy and its celebrated crus, there’s what the French call lieu-dit – literally “said-place” – everywhere, including the most humble and uncelebrated regions. The name of that site on a bottle tells us that the wine inside will taste like it comes from that unique place.

That idea is the promise of a single vineyard wine. It seems antiquated, but take a look at the shelves of your local wine shop or supermarket. There’s more new single vineyard wines than ever.

Why are more Kiwi winemakers taking that approach?

I can think of a couple of reasons. First, it’s a matter of age and experience. Modern winegrowing in New Zealand has a relatively short history, but many of our vineyards are reaching an age where winegrowers have experienced a consistent quality of fruit from specific sites over a number of years, or even decades, and want to capture that in a bottle.

From a consumer’s perspective, there’s ever more interest in the provenance of what we eat and drink. A single vineyard wine reminds us that wine is a product of the land it comes from and the people who work that land. In the 90s and early 2000s “special reserve” wines were popular at the top end of the market, often promoted as the expression of the technical mastery and unbridled artistry of a winemaker. Single vineyard wines fill more of that “top shelf ” space now, reflective of a maturing wine culture and the increasing value drinkers place on drawing connections to the place their wine comes from.

But do single vineyard wines taste better?

There are two right answers here. With my wine nerd hat on the answer is no, there’s no reason to expect a wine from a single vineyard to taste better. The point is that it should taste true to the place it comes from, and to ask if it is better misses the point. There’s a lot of merit in that idea, and it certainly informs my approach to appreciating wine.

But that’s not exactly a practical answer if you want to know if it’s worth it to spend a bit more money (and they are typically a bit more expensive) on a single vineyard wine. In that case, there’s enough practical reasons to suggest yes. A winemaker chooses to bottle a wine from a specific site because they think it makes for wine that will bring pleasure. It’s also a fair assumption that once committed to making a wine from a single site a winery will commit significant resources to allow that wine to show its best face.

A more appropriate question is if it’s worth it. In which case the answer is definitely yes.