Over the last few weeks the Babich Wines harvest has kicked off in earnest, starting with our Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay and Marlborough Pinot Noir vineyards. Read on for an early insight into Vintage 2024…

Hawke’s Bay

At the end of January, our Marketing, Sales & Marlborough teams, got together to clean-up the Wairau Bar coastline, located where the Wairau River meets the sea in Cloudy Bay, Marlborough, using Sustainable Coastlines DIY Beach Cleanup Kits.

It is truly astounding what you can find once you start looking. After only 2 hours, our team collected over 320kg worth of rubbish! Items such as:

• A Washing Machine
• Bicycle
• Tent
• Broken glass
• Plastic cups
• Car tyres
• Coffee cups
• Motor gasket
• Cans / bottles / cardboard
• Plastic tubs
• Fishing nets / wire
• Building materials
• Fishing nets / wire
• Ceramic tiles
• BBQ grill

Such an incredible result after only a short period of time and a real eye-opener, highlighting the importance of keeping the places we love clean, and the significance of changing the practices that get litter there in the first place.

Our Marlborough Viticultural Manager, David Bullivant, had this to say after the day:

“The exercise reinforced our suspicion that small and large amounts of plastic and rubbish that pollute our properties and communities, far from the ocean, end up in the ocean and on our foreshores. Every single day we handle items from plastic bags to writing pens and these items are often subconsciously discarded on the street, but they don’t break down and rain, drains and streams transport them to the sea.”

 

As water quality and ocean pollution become two of New Zealand’s biggest issues, Babich Wines is sponsoring the Sustainable Coastlines Charitable Trust to support communities around New Zealand to clean and protect local beaches and waterways.

Water is vital to a healthy wine industry and as one of New Zealand’s oldest wineries Babich Wines has a proud history of investing in water conservation initiatives, both here and internationally, says Babich Wines CEO David Babich.

“Over our 100-year history, through periods of drought, climate change, and increasing pressure on natural resources, we’ve always understood the importance of a healthy environment. Not just to the industry and the quality of our wines, but most importantly to local ecosystems and communities. Sponsoring Sustainable Coastlines is a really natural fit for us,” says Babich. “Our goal with this sponsorship is to support and amplify Sustainable Coastlines’ mission to reduce ocean litter, and inspire change through community engagement and citizen science.”

Babich Wines has a long-standing history of working hard across their vineyards to protect New Zealand’s water resources through their own initiatives. This includes extensive riparian planting and installing web-based irrigation controllers to minimise water wastage and improve efficiency. They are also converting vineyards to use underground irrigation for more sustainable water use, ensuring water is targeting the vines rather than bio-competition (often weeds), and have built a series of large reservoirs to store water during wet seasons for use during the dry summer period.

“We’ve always tried to do our bit in our own vineyards and wineries to protect and conserve water resources and waterways for future generations, but the reality is that there are no borders to the environment. For us, sponsoring Sustainable Coastlines and supporting communities to clean-up and prevent litter pollution on our beaches is just as important as what we do in our family’s vineyards,” Babich adds. “Starting this sponsorship journey with Sustainable Coastlines is exciting for me personally, it’s great for our communities, and most importantly it’s beneficial for all the plants and wildlife that call our beaches and oceans home.”

Established in April 2009, the Sustainable Coastlines Charitable Trust works to reduce ocean litter by inspiring change in mindsets, behaviours and policy through large-scale clean-up activities, learning in schools, volunteer litter monitoring and managing Aotearoa’s most comprehensive dataset of the litter problem on our beaches and ultimately in our oceans. CEO of Sustainable Coastlines, Josh Borthwick says,

“Support from organisations like Babich Wines helps us deliver impact and ensures we can manaaki our volunteers and supporters for their mahi. This reward is part of what we like to call the ‘high five’ effect and it’s ultimately what we want people to do after a hard day of volunteering, knowing their efforts are contributing small ripples toward larger waves of change to reduce litter and protect our moana.”

 

Photograph by: Kurt McManus Photography

The ultimate summer event in Auckland is New Zealand’s tennis open, the ASB Classic, which is set to return to centre court at Stanley Street in January 2023, after a two-year hiatus. Babich Wines are proud to once again be the Official Wine Sponsor of the event, as top players from across the globe serve up sizzling summer action on court.

 

The event experience off the court will be just as world class as the international players who will join the tournament, with the team led by new Tournament Director Nicolas Lamperin attracting some of the world’s leading brands amongst the events sponsors and suppliers. The Babich Wine Bar, situated in the tournament’s entertainment precinct, The Serve, will provide spectators the perfect off-court experience, with attendees able to enjoy wine from a variety of Babich Wines’ sustainably-produced ranges plus delicious, high-quality food offerings available.

“Our goal is not only to showcase some outstanding tennis, but also deliver a fantastic experience around the tournament that offers something for everyone,” says Lamperin.

“Babich Wines are a family-owned winery based right here in Auckland with an amazing history and a wonderful set of values. But most importantly for the spectators, all of their wines taste great, delivering the quality people have come to expect at an event like this.”

The ASB Classic will take place from January 2nd to 14th, 2023, with the event shaping up to be one of the best in recent history, as some of the world’s top tennis players, including Coco Gauff and world number two Casper Ruud, scheduled to head to the tournament.

“We’re thrilled to be back in place as the Official Wine Sponsor of the ASB Classic, which promises to be better than ever with some impressive tennis talent coming on board, and some fantastic activations and entertainment planned around the event itself. It’s a real privilege to align with a tournament that has grown to be so much more than just a sports event in New Zealanders’ calendars. Its commitment to sustainability fits well with Babich Wines’ reputation as one of New Zealand’s most experienced, innovative and respected sustainable wine brands,” says Mikkel Nielsen, Babich Wines’ Global Marketing Manager.

Be sure to get your tickets to experience the action, the crowd-spotting, and of course, your favourite Babich Wines with us.

As our 2022 vintage wines begin to make their way into market, our Head Winemaker, Adam Hazeldine, takes a look back and shares his view on Vintage 2022.

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Weather is always that one thing a winemaker can’t control, and we definitely had one eye on the sky throughout the season that culminated in our 2022 harvest. A dominant La Niña weather pattern meant that our usually dependable westerlies, which cast a rain-shadow, were frequently challenged by winds from the east and north. These winds tend to be wetter and, because they’re unimpeded by mountain ranges, tend to bring more rain to our vineyards. At their worst, they can also bring cyclones down from the tropics, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case for this harvest.

Marlborough

Good conditions at flowering and a steady supply of rain early in the season led to big canopies and some large crops that needed thinning to maintain quality. With pressure from potential COVID-19 closures and some late February rain, we decided to start our harvest earlier than usual — better to have a few good grapes than none at all!

The early varieties, such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, were picked in great condition. The Pinot Noir, for both Rosé and Red, is showing nice bright fruit forward flavours, and the Chardonnay is looking excellent.

This season, the Pinot Gris and the Albariño have just the right balance of freshness and body. Sauvignon Blancs are generally in the vibrant juicy-green spectrum, with a lot of pungent blackcurrant and passionfruit thiols. The organic Sauvignon Blanc was in excellent condition as harvest approached, so we held out a little longer for a weightier result.

Hawke’s Bay

Our Hawke’s Bay season started off well with good weather; dry and warm with nice westerlies. This gave us a nice compact flowering period, which means we had good uniformity of ripeness when harvest rolled around.

After the dry flowering, we had a relatively wet December which encouraged cell division (which increases berry size), and healthy canopies. January was sunny, but that was followed by some late February rain that is not ideal for the earlier varieties.

We saw a small amount of botrytis in the Chardonnays, but the wines are looking clean and well weighted with good intensity. The Merlot, Malbec, Syrah and Cabernet Franc were ripe and clean and have been blended into a refreshing, berry-driven Rosé. The Syrah sourced from Gimblett Gravels for our Classics range is ripe and juicy, with great red fruit flavours, and is already developing suppleness and some complex spicy notes.

Highlights

At this early stage the overall highlights, for me, of the 2022 vintage in the Marlborough region are the Black Label and Family Estate Sauvignon Blancs. I’m also looking forward to the release of the Family Estate Chardonnay and Albariño, and of course our fan favourite, Babich Sauvignon Blanc. Hawke’s Bay highlights are the Irongate Chardonnay, which is currently building nicely in barrel now, and the Classic Hawke’s Bay Syrah, which is well on target to be enjoyed during BBQ season, two years from now.

There’s definitely no shortage of excellent Babich wines on the way!

– Adam Hazeldine

Every vintage is the story of a great coming together. As the grapes reach the peak of their condition, everyone in the vineyards and in the winery work together to get the best quality fruit into the glass.

Vintage 2022 Harvest was no exception, with everyone from hand harvesters, to harvester drivers, truck drivers and cellar hands, coming together to guarantee their smooth delivery into the winery; even down to micro-managing the quantity of grapes going into each truck.

“They say good wine is made in the vineyard, but all the hard work during the summer can be quickly undone if we don’t pick the grapes at the best time” says Marlborough Viticulture Manager David Bullivant.

The weather over the harvest period had our vineyard staff on their toes as there were some periods of rain that forced our harvesters into hibernation. Water on the fruit dilutes the fruit going into the winery. So when the weather was on our side and the grapes at optimal ripeness, our team jumped to action, working tirelessly to harvest the grapes and get them to the winery.

With the Babich Wines team yet again working seamlessly together, wine lovers have a lot to look forward to, with our Viticulturalists in both Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay predicting there to be some fantastic wine to come from this vintage.

“I think there will be some very good and interesting wines to come out of this harvest. The growing degree days were up and I tasted some very good flavours in the vineyard,” says Hawke’s Bay Viticulturist Tony Smith.

And now that the Harvest is done, and the reins are handed over to our winemakers to work their magic, our hard-working vineyard teams can enjoy a break, before reflecting on what they can improve on even further, next year.

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Vintage 2022 officially kicked off at Babich Wines this month, with harvest starting across all our estate-owned vineyards. Our team have been relentlessly working towards this exciting moment for the past 6 months and eagerly got stuck in.

Chardonnay & Pinot Noir are the first grapes to start coming off the vines, as the teams in Henderson, Hawke’s Bay & Marlborough carefully hand-pick whilst enjoying the fresh air and rural settings. There are a few early morning starts for some, who are up before the sun, however, the beautiful sunrises sure make it worthwhile. Others battle on in the heat of the day (26+°C at times) and we’ve heard many are being reacquainted with muscles they have previously neglected! Our founder, Josip Babich, would be proud of them all.

Check out a few snaps taken by various team members across the country documenting harvest, below.

For the next several weeks, we will see the remainder of our red and white varieties picked using a mixture of hand and machine harvesting. Once harvested, the grapes will find themselves in the winery, where the magical winemaking process will begin…watch this space…

 

Grapes are like honoured guests in the winery. When the first lot arrives in a couple weeks from now, the team need to be ready to give them the welcome they deserve.

One of our biggest challenges is that grapes of the same variety all tend to reach optimum condition for harvest at the same time. Even between varieties, the difference is not that great – no more than a few weeks – and because we want to harvest every bunch of grapes when it’s at its very best, that means that our winery has to be ready to accept a lot of fruit, in a very short period of time. Everything has to run smoothly – not just because it’s stressful enough when a year’s worth of work and production arrives at your doorstep all at once, but because we want to be able to preserve every bit of flavour and quality we get from the vineyard.

In the last weeks before harvest starts, everything undergoes a deep clean, from the grape receival bins to the presses, conveyors and tanks. Being mindful of waste, we try to use as little water as possible, applying it at high pressure for maximum cleaning power. All cooling systems and machines are checked to make sure they’re working as they should, and the team ensure the winery is as empty as possible – especially the fermentation tanks and barrels – so there is room to receive the new crop as it begins its winemaking journey.

Of course, you need dedicated people at every step of the winemaking process, so we’ve added staff to make sure there’s always a watchful eye and caring hand to guide our grapes on their journey to becoming the best wine they can be.

Every vintage brings its own challenges and joys. And as new vineyard blocks come into production, it’s always exciting to see the quality of the fruit and wine that arrives. This year, our Tetley Brook C block in Marlborough has finished its three-year transition to being fully organic, and we’re eager to see the results.

Vintage 2022 is on its way, watch this space!

 

With summer drawing to a close, soon it will be time for our vines to reward us, as we edge closer to the most thrilling time of year; Harvest. Our teams have a lot to do in the lead up to this, as each have their own crucial part to play in ensuring our grapes are delivered to the winery in the best possible condition, so they can go on to make the best possible wine.

After caring and tending the vines and grapes for the past 12 months, our vineyard and viticultural teams are busy concentrating on keeping the vines in tip-top condition. Primarily, by plucking leaves and trimming the vines to make sure they get enough sun and airflow around the young bunches so that diseases don’t take hold, causing rot. They’re keeping other predators in check too; ensuring the vines have first dibs on nutrients in the soil by removing weeds, and placing netting over the vines to protect them from birds.

More importantly, they’re keeping tabs on the fruit – specifically how much there is, their development and condition – because, knowing how much of each variety we are likely to harvest enables us to prepare the Winery team and allocate resources, more effectively.

Careful water use is always front of our mind, especially at this time of year as the vines are extra thirsty. Consequently, the team is busy monitoring irrigation and looking for leaks in the driplines to ensure no water goes to waste, and using new high-tech probes to constantly monitor the moisture content underground. This helps to make sure our vines have enough water and energy for the grapes to ripen to perfection but, are thirsty enough to deliver the concentration of flavour that Babich wines are famous for.

Finally, in the last stretch towards vintage, we make sure everyone on our team gets the opportunity for some well-earned rest before the mad rush of harvest begins. When the grapes are ready to be harvested, the team needs to be ready too, then, it’ll be over to our winemakers to ensure that what ends up in your glass, is pure bliss!

Tune in next week to hear what the winery team are busy doing in preparation for Vintage 2022…

The Babich family is mourning the passing of Joe Babich, New Zealand wine industry pioneer, who passed away on 13 January 2022 after a two year battle with cancer, aged 81.

David Babich, Joe’s nephew and CEO of Babich Wines, said, “On behalf of the Babich family and with great sadness I would like to announce the passing of Joe Babich, much-loved husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, and New Zealand wine industry pioneer.  Joe was an exceptionally well-regarded and talented winemaker, but his greatest legacy is his positive impact on those around him. Joe was invariably and famously down-to-earth, warm, and approachable, with a wry and gentle sense of humour. He will be sorely missed by family and friends, and colleagues in the wine industry.”

Joe was born on 10 October 1940 into a winemaking family, with his father Josip having founded Babich Wines in 1916 and in time his brother Peter also working in the business. After initially exploring a pharmacist apprenticeship, Joe decided to join the family winery, where over a 60 year career in the wine industry he built a reputation as one of New Zealand’s most talented and respected winemakers and wine judges.

He combined a traditional attitude to winemaking with an open-mindedness that allowed constant innovation. Joe produced, in secret and unknown to family or the winery, one of the first New Zealand Chardonnays to be not only matured, but also fermented, in barrel. The resulting wine, Irongate Chardonnay, continues to be an icon in New Zealand wine even today.

Joe’s contributions to the New Zealand wine industry are extensive, and are recognised by a range of accolades. These include the Winemaker of the Year Award at the New Zealand Royal Easter Show (1994), the Sir George Fistonich Medal in recognition of service to New Zealand wine (2013), the ONZM in the New Year’s Honours for services to the Wine Industry (2015), induction into the New Zealand Wine Hall of Fame (2015), induction into the West Auckland Business Hall of Fame (2016), and investiture as a Fellow of New Zealand Winegrowers (2017).

Joe also served as Chairman of Judges at the New Zealand Wine Awards on six occasions, testament to his leadership, and the respect with which he was held in the industry. He was also instrumental in setting up the wine export certification process which helped pave the way for the growth of New Zealand wine on the world stage.

Joe Babich is survived by his wife, Judy, and son, André and partner Magdalena and their daughter Stella.