NZ Wine in a Global Scale: A conversation with JancisRobinson.com executive editor, Elaine Brown.

Hand on heart Elaine Brown is one of the most eloquent, inspirational and gifted speakers I know. She speaks honestly, with passion and conviction, has educated me and many others about wine and connecting wine with and to people. Listening to Elaine’s speech at Pinot Noir NZ 2017, a three-day event for wine producers, writers and fans of Pinot to meet, taste and discuss Pinot, was inspirational, educational and honest.

Post PN 2017 my wife, Janet and I, and Elaine have become friends catching up as often as possible, thank goodness for email, but when travel allows a face to face in the USA is always organised. The opportunity to weave Elaine’s perspective on New Zealand’s wine sector and introduce her to you at the same time is an honour. We got together on a Zoom mid-April to talk about New Zealand wine and how well we are doing on the global wine stage.

Elaine Chukan Brown is a writer, speaker, and educator specialising in wine, personal empowerment, and social justice. She is the executive editor for USA wine at JancisRobinson.com. Prior to her career in wine, Elaine served as a Charles A Eastman Fellow at Dartmouth College and is also a Tomlinson Fellow at McGill University, where she completed doctoral work in philosophy. Elaine is Aleut-Inupiat, an Alaska Native. Elaine travels and works for wine with her home base in California.

I asked Elaine what makes New Zealand come up in conversation in the first place, what are we known for really?

“A big driver is that New Zealand is a very special, beautiful place, even people who don’t really know much more than New Zealand exists know that it’s a beautiful place to be. There’s an imagined purity, people are really curious about Māori culture and there’s a perception that New Zealand has this implicit spirituality’.

When it comes to wine, what is the current reputation of New Zealand wine from a consumer’s perspective, are we known for this?

“Generally speaking, the average consumer absolutely knows New Zealand makes good wine, reliable and delicious.”

Is Sauvignon Blanc still the leading variety for New Zealand wine in the USA?

“Absolutely it is, consumers may not necessarily know regions or that it might be Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, but they do know its New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.”

What about Pinot Noir” “Once you start talking to the more serious wine drinker then they know there’s Pinot Noir from New Zealand. Many of them love it.”

What about Chardonnay then, is there any traction in the market for this variety?

“This is a variety that is a lot further down the list, New Zealand does make great Chardonnay and it keeps getting better and better, but a lot of people are less driven to seek out Chardonnay from other regions. The curious trade do want to know more than that though, interestingly they get excited about NZ Syrah and Riesling, they know you grow Cabernet, but don’t necessarily know more than that.”

So, what about styles such as sparkling or sweet wine, are they just a dream for us for the US market?

“New Zealand makes beautiful examples of these wines and they definitely have a future, but we have to do more to make people aware of them, sparkling especially garners similar interest to Riesling but only very invested trade are aware of sparkling wine from New Zealand.”

You are the only person I know that creates tasting notes through art as well as in a written form, how did you develop the tasting notes as art?

“When I first started in the wine sector I noticed that the way in which professionals or the trade talked about wine was quite different from say the conversations I was having with friends who liked wine. I had this experience with two friends who asked me to pick a wine because they had decided I would know it was good, so I picked a wine, a German Sekt (sparkling Riesling), a very aromatic version, my friends loved it and when I said it smelled like jasmine they were all big-eyed, smelled it again and said ‘you’re right’. It hadn’t occurred to me that they didn’t think about what they were smelling, they just liked it. Then one of them said ‘I wish you were always with me when I drink wine, it always makes so much more sense. Elaine went on to explain “when we have visual cues the information can go in fast, like photographs or drawings or film, visual cues are instant, not like the traditional form of written tasting notes. I started drawing tasting notes for a friends’ wine bar and this just caught on. Another friend confided in me and said that it’s so great to know what a wine actually tastes like before I buy it”. Elaine has also produced many wine-art pieces that now hanging in people’s homes.

I asked Elaine if she thought regional styles were apparent in our Pinot Noir?

“There’s absolutely regionality for Pinot Noir, broadly speaking there’s also a New Zealand character for Pinot, but I also think that in different parts of the wine world wine has signatures of acidity, you can identify these and use them as a marker to help identify a place. Acidity in New Zealand wine is high toned and elevated, but with a diffusing lens on it, it softens around the edges.”

Elaine also mentioned that wine producers in New Zealand are “really settling into their own, there’s a greater confidence or clarity in ‘what does this place give me’, that’s really exciting to me. I remember attending a red wine seminar in NZ, we were tasting through certain wines and I could see that they were a reflection of where they were from, while some other attendees there were just comparing the wines to other places in the world. I was witnessing a pivot moment for New Zealand, this region keeps coming into itself and it’s just going to get clearer”.

I asked Elaine about the trend into low or zero alcohol wines, was there a similar trend in the US?

“There are some large-scale producers in the US who use reverse-osmosis to de-alcoholise wine, I haven’t yet tasted any I felt were successful. There’s a small-scale producer here that has partially fermented verjus to 3% alcohol, it’s a nice wine for brunch”.

Elaines’ travel schedule for the rest of the year is busy leading tastings and seminars in Canada, Washington DC, Copenhagen, Paris and Texas. She recently completed a Zoom-in tasting and seminar in Japan from her home. Just as we finished our chat she popped into the conversation that she’d just finished tasting over 90 hybrid wines from all over the USA.

There is much to learn from Elaine and if you have the opportunity in the future to attend a seminar or tasting led by her, I encourage you to do so. If you’d like to read more about Elaine and listen to her speech from Pinot 17 please visit https://wakawakawinereviews.com/2017/03/08/future-communication-pinot-noir-nz/