Quinces, pears, apples and spice…. and all things nice. Aromatic grape varieties in New Zealand are wildly popular – Verdelho, Riesling, Gewürztraminer of course Pinot Gris. Things kicked off twenty-five years ago, so this is not new. For my money Neil McCallum (Dry River Vineyard in Martinborough) provided a benchmark for Riesling and Pinot Gris way back when but these days styles and quality vary dramatically.

Let’s take Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio that all time favourite. This comes in a number of guises with varying sweetness, acidity and alcohol. New Zealand wine consultant Matt Thomson was not alone in finding this all a bit confusing and so he convened a meeting of winemakers in Marlborough to thrash out a united style. How should Marlborough Pinot Gris taste? They rejected Alsace as a role model given this too has a breadth of styles, but toyed with the idea of something more Northern Italian -Trentino Alto-Adige. Although we all know there are some wonderful Pinot Grigio, the idea of calling the ‘style’ Marlborough Grigio was not on the cards as many felt the perception of Pinot Grigio was too low. Nope this Kiwi group wanted to pitch their Pinot Gris upmarket. So a style, but not a name was agreed.

Their sites were set on a lighter, fresh, dry, aromatic and consistent style. On paper this meant less than 14% alcohol, more than 6 g/l acidity and less than 6 g/l residual sugar. Marlborough would take the lead and show the world what NZ PG was made of. However it wouldn’t be quite so easy for growers North of the Cook Straight to achieve this. Many growers in Hawkes Bay love Pinot Gris, but in this largely red producing area, it’s a tall order to bring in a breezy Alto Adige style. Here they must harvest early to prevent sugars from rising and acidity plummeting. Pinot Gris can all too easily put on weight and become flabby. The fruit can turn through shades of woolly apple and over ripe pear to become heavy and oily. Chuck in a sweet finish and the effect is cloying.

At a recent tasting it was clear that throughout New Zealand a wide variety of Pinot Gris still exists, including a rather offensive sparking version. However there are some lovely wines from Marlborough. The most true to the Alto Adige style is Tinpot Hut 2015 which is fresh and energetic with lime-like fruit and hints of spice. It has an appetisingly tart and dry finish – dry at just 3.2 g/l residual sugar.

Another great example comes from Kim Crawford who planted vines in 2000 in the sub-regions of Wairau and Awatere in Marlborough, riding the growing wave of Pinot popularity. These plantings give him subtly different fruit to drawn on depending on the vintage… 2014 and 2015 were very different. He emphasises the importance of choosing the right yeast to showcase fresh fruit flavours. The Kim Crawford 2015 is a lively Pinot Gris with an bright sweet apple bite, a light richness to the texture and a crisp finish. It’s a reasonable 13% and has just 4.5g/l residual sugar. It’s not just the Kiwi’s who love this wine. The US market laps it up.

Also in Marlborough the Giesen brothers make a spicy Pinot Gris, which just edges away from the crisp and dry Italianate profile. It’s fresh and fruity, but slightly more tropical in flavour with hints of lychee. It is a trim 12.5%, but with a touch more sugar at 8g/l… betraying their German ancestry.

Opawa (meaning smoky river) also nudges the boundaries with their dry Marlborough Pinot Gris. This is riper at 13.5%. It has passion fruit flavours and just enough acidity to nicely balance. The grapes ripen on the river gravels which absorb the daytime heat, keeping the vine quite snug at night… pushing up those sugars.

And then there are those who are clearly uninterested in the Marlborough PG profile. Nautilus Pinot Gris is partially barrel fermented. It’s also dry, but is much fuller and richer with a thick texture from lees stirring which creates a more Alsatian style. It conforms to ‘agreed’ the analysis, but not in terms of taste.

In this more Alsatian mould I particularly like Greywacke, from the clay loam soils of Marlborough’s Brancott valley together with a little from a parcel in Rapaura where the Greywacke river stones are found. It has a heady 14% of alcohol …steady on… and 8g/l residual sugar…just touching on off dry. This could be dangerous ground, but Kevin Rudd (founding winemaker of Cloudy Bay) skilfully pulls it off. It’s unashamedly ample, but contained. Full and expressive and ever so slightly unctuous, but balanced. There are hints of an exotic spice market.

Let’s hop over to the North Island to Craggy Range Te Muna Road Vineyard. This lies a few km outside Martinborough, where the days are warm, but the nights cool. I like this. It has a floral, apricot aroma and the body is rounded, but not rich. Delicate notes of nashi pear define the palate. There is energy and some tension in the mid palate and it is dry and mineral on the finish. In many ways this conforms to the Marlborough profile and does it in a rather refined way.

I was left with a two impressions. I like the aromatic intensity of NZPG, but do wonder to what extent this is dependent upon specific yeasts. This sits slightly at odds with the county’s image of all things ‘natural.’ Secondly I don’t rate their chances of presenting a united style, slim in Marlborough and not a chance in the warmer areas of the North Island.

The profusion of styles may be confusing, but on the positive side, this is engaging and provides wine for a broader range of dishes. Not that you always want an element of surprise, but maybe that’s where a good back label comes in.