‘It’s either brave or stupid,’ says Erica Crawford of her new wine venture, Loveblock, which she established with husband Kim Crawford.The Vine Agency/Supplied
While Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc continues to represent New Zealand wine around the world with telltale zesty and jubilant flavours, the couple behind that runaway success have shifted their focus toward more sustainable and refined wines from Marlborough.
“It’s either brave or stupid,” says Erica Crawford, who established Loveblock with winemaker husband Kim Crawford after the sale of their bestselling brand to Constellation in 2006. (The couple planted Loveblock vineyard and sold their grapes until 2013, when a non-compete clause on making wine expired.)
The couple’s second venture is rooted on a rugged piece of land they bought in Marlborough’s Awatere Valley. At a higher altitude, the farm is windy and cooler than traditional vineyards in the region. The site is home to chickens, cattle and sheep (to control weeds) as well as sauvignon blanc, pinot gris and other vines that are farmed organically. The brand also has another family vineyard focused on pinot noir in Bendigo, Central Otago.
The farming practices and terroir result in styles with a different personality and flavour than traditional expressions of wines from Marlborough. In the glass, Loveblock’s expression is unmistakably sauvignon blanc, but less in-your-face compared with the Marlborough style that the Kim Crawford brand helped introduce to the world.
“It made me fall in love with the variety again,” says Erica, who believes New Zealand wine needs a refresh to maintain consumer interest.
The couple’s second venture is rooted on a rugged piece of land they bought in Marlborough’s Awatere Valley.Jim Tannock/Supplied
Kim, the winemaker, used to describe his signature wine as “explosive.” British wine writer Oz Clarke once recounted how Marlborough sauvignon blanc “crackled and spat its flavours.”
The uniquely aromatic style stood out in a market flooded with oak-aged chardonnay. Twenty-plus years later, the wine trade continues to marvel at the style’s Energizer Bunny-like success. Pessimistic predictions that Marlborough sauvignon blanc will suffer the same boom-to-bust fate of Australian shiraz have yet to materialize.
Erica says that sauvignon blanc is a noble grape that can embody different styles and personalities (as winemakers in Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and other regions can attest). “At some point, people will tire of that big lean character, which is why it’s really important we work on an evolution of style.”
Representing more than 70 per cent of New Zealand’s total wine production with continued international demand, sauvignon blanc has been thoroughly researched in terms of grape-growing, winemaking and flavour.
Adding sulphur and ascorbic acid to machine-harvested grapes before pressing, which encourages strong tropical and herbal favours in the finished product, is one of the trade secrets for producing classic Marlborough-style sauvignon blanc. Specially selected yeast strains also contribute to the desired profile.
As a certified organic wine, which strictly regulates the amount of sulphites in the finished product, Loveblock’s style is different because there’s only a small postfermentation addition of sulphur, prior to bottling.
Loveblock’s business model takes a completely different approach than the Crawfords’ original brand, which avoided investing in land, vines and equipment.
Its 65,000-case production comes from family-owned vineyards, and is housed in a recently purchased winery in Rapaura, a region in Marlborough known as the “Golden Mile.” (The successful bid was on the fifth suitable property they found, having been outbid in earlier transactions by outsiders buying into the industry.)
The Crawfords established Kim Crawford Wines as a virtual winery in Auckland in 1996, producing 4,000 cases in their first vintage. Export to North America started in 1998, with unoaked chardonnay, riesling and merlot outselling sauvignon blanc at first. “We started with 20,000 New Zealand dollars,” Crawford explains. “With two youngsters at home, I was so nervous, I did not sleep.”
Their operation first sold to Canada’s Vincor International (now Arterra Wines Canada) in 2003 for 14.8-million New Zealand dollars to fuel expansion – from 86,000 cases in 2002 – and meet rising export demands. At that time, winemaking was carried out in leased facilities in Auckland and Marlborough, and grapes were purchased from growers with long-term contracts.
New York-based Constellation Brands snapped up Vincor three years later, and the Kim Crawford label became the biggest beneficiary. It transformed into the top-selling sauvignon blanc in North America, with a reported 1.3 million cases sold in 2018. Kim worked with Constellation until 2007 and Erica worked with the company until 2009.
Erica says the couple always planned to sell the brand and buy land, but added that the path to establishing an organics-driven winery has not been easy. Planting an organic vineyard in a windswept corner of Marlborough and converting an existing vineyard has been an expensive and time-consuming process. Many lessons have been learned, she says.
“We were 10-feet tall and bulletproof, having sold Kim Crawford. … We thought we knew everything,” she says with a smile.
One of Loveblock’s most intriguing wines, Loveblock Tee Organic Sauvignon Blanc 2023, is currently available at LCBO outlets and liquor stores in Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Tee refers to the use of green tea tannin extract during production, not as a flavour, but as a substitute for sulphur, to protect the wine against oxidation and spoilage. A small addition of green tea powder – a winemaking product called Ti Premium – is added to the juice or wine before exposure to oxygen.
All wines contain some sulphites because yeasts naturally create sulphur dioxide during fermentation. Tee Organic Sauvignon Blanc is marketed as a no-sulphur-added wine, which appeals to consumers looking for more natural wines, and those who attribute headaches, hives or other reactions to sulphites. Dried fruits, such as apricots and raisins, as well as pickled, preserved or prepackaged foods often have higher sulfite levels than a glass of wine.
While a pure product wine without the use of chemical pesticides, fungicides or unnecessary additives appeals to Erica, her real excitement comes from the unexpected range of flavours present in natural wine, such as mandarin, star fruit and cumin seed. To my taste, Tee Organic was a satisfyingly ripe expression of sauvignon blanc with complex fruity character and a soft, creamy texture that stands apart from the norm.
