GOING BLANC

When Neal and Judy Ibbotson arrived in Marlborough in 1967, they found quiet farming country, with crops and orchards and sheep grazing stony paddocks. Fast forward to today, and the region has over 71,000 acres of vines, 80 percent of New Zealand’s wine exports, a name globally synonymous with Sauvignon Blanc, and scarcely a sheep in sight. Meanwhile Saint Clair Family Estate, founded by the Ibbotsons 30 years ago, has vineyards across the region, markets throughout the world, and a second generation at the helm.

It’s an “amazing” and unexpected transformation, Neal says. “I had no idea the wine industry would come here, and that along the way they would find Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which has become one of the world’s most sought-after wines.”

Good timing is seldom enough, and the Ibbotsons’ success story is also one of hard work and stubborn enterprise. Neal was a 24-year-old rural advisor, with dreams of owning a farm, when he moved to Marlborough and met Judy, a school dental nurse who was also new to town. They were married the next year and by 1970 had borrowed money for 100 pigs and 32 acres, never imagining winemaking would feature in their plans.

In 1973 Montana Wines set about planting vines in the nearby Brancott Valley, and by 1978 the Ibbotsons were replacing pigs and pens with Müller Thurgau, joining nine other contract growers in the region. On weekdays Judy called on a group of women to help her plant the vineyard, install irrigation and manage harvests, while Neal continued his day job to pay the bills, then toiled in the block each weekend, drilling holes for the next run of posts.

From their preschool years, the young Ibbotsons – Sarina, Tony and Julie – helped out in the vines, awarded with chocolate cookies at the end of each row. These days, Julie and Sarina manage the company their parents worked so hard to grow, while Tony lends his creative flair to the design of labels and packaging. “When we are all there at wine events, showing our wines as two generations, it feels pretty special to know this has all been built in our lifetime, and is truly a family-run company.”

Neal’s plans to retire by 50 were scuppered in 1994, when he and Judy decided to launch their own wine label, going on to build a bespoke winery, grow their vineyard holdings, develop enduring contract grower relationships, forge 70 markets around the world, and establish the Saint Clair Vineyard Kitchen restaurant and cellar door, tapping into Judy’s love of food and hospitality. It seems busy when they look back, she says with a laugh, sitting in the home they built on their original block. “But at the time we just got on with it.”

TURNING POINT

Saint Clair has come a long way in the past 30 years, but Neal says the real decisive moment was six years in, when he and his winemaker at the time, Matt Thomson, resolved to “lift the bar” in wine quality, with Sauvignon Blanc the hero. 

Back then land between Blenheim and Rarangi was deemed “cabbage country” by many, suited to market gardens not wine. But Neal followed Matt’s advice to buy Dillons Point fruit in 2000, launching a new era for the company. Matt explained then that the difference in the Sauvignon Blanc from the area was an abundance of thiol compounds, but Neal dashes the technical term and instead describes the intense passion fruit aroma that hit him the moment it was poured.

It is an intensity they’re still committed to, explains Jarrah Prior, the company’s general manager of winegrowing, describing the flagship role of the Saint Clair Dillons Point Sauvignon Blanc and Saint Clair Wairau Reserve Sauvignon Blanc. “Our home and heart are really Dillons Point.”

Jarrah loves the nuances of Marlborough’s subregions, from the more mineral and restrained Sauvignon of the Awatere Valley to the riper fruit spectrums yielded by warmer stony soils of the Wairau Plains. But the Dillons Point “distinction” is an astounding success story, “and a lot of people didn’t think it could be done.”

Many varietals around the world perform best in harsh conditions, but Sauvignon Blanc is an exception to the rule, and doesn’t respond well to stress, Jarrah explains. The Dillons Point vines sit in balance in fertile soils, and the higher concentration of thiols boosts grapefruit and passionfruit characters, overlaying green layers of nettles and jalapenos, and high notes like blackcurrant leaf. The concentration of the wines “blows you out of the water,” he says, describing the pungency of aroma that fills a room, making it a delight to show them to old world consumers, accustomed to a more subtle introduction. “These characters are there in other examples of Sauvignon Blanc, but it is dialed up in concentration in these Dillons Point wines.”

If the Dillons Point Sauvignon Blanc is a gamechanger, then the Wairau Reserve is “next level” Jarrah tells me. “This is Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc dialed up to 120 percent.” We’re speaking at the Saint Clair winery, where 320 small tanks mean every vineyard parcel can be kept separate. When it comes to choosing the Wairau Reserve, which hails from one Dillons Point block each vintage, the Ibbotson family join their five winemakers to taste hundreds of parcels blind over two or three days. “We are looking for the wow factor,” Jarrah says, noting that this is not the place for a shy wine, but rather a showstopper.

“Great wines around the world offer typicity of where they’re from, whether it’s Champagne or Barossa Shiraz or Napa Cabernet. I think with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc you can pick it 300 miles away. It’s that sense of place, and not many regions have that one defining factor. Other wine regions scream for that.”

The past 30 years have been astronomical for the Ibbotsons, thanks to good timing, good luck, hard work and authentic relationships, Jarrah says adding, “They have ridden the wave and done it with integrity.” As for Neal and Judy, they are quick to place the successes on the shoulders of the people they have worked with. “We have been extremely fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, surrounded by amazing people. And to have been part of the Marlborough wine industry and the Sauvignon Blanc phenomenon.”