[As published in May/June 2026 BayBuzz magazine.]

Why is this world of wine so bloody tough, and seemingly extra tough in Hawke’s Bay? 

Let’s be clear though, it is also extra tough in many famous wine regions of the world as changes of real magnitude take hold at a consumer level. Even some of the elite wines of the world are struggling.

People who drink proper wine  are changing as fashions change. By ‘proper’ wine I mean no infusions or any of the de-alcoholised trash, these things aren’t wine. Refreshing whites are more in favour than big reds, people will drink less and become more fussy, they will demand more transparency and be more tuned to authentic brand and wine story than reputation. Less but better might actually be happening. 

Reading the Pivotttt! column in the last issue did not give me enormous confidence for Hawke’s Bay. Pivot from what? Isn’t a pirouette more elegant and a sabre more brutal? 

A viable sustainable business model is not about going around picking up grapes for next to nothing, putting a fancy label on it and trying to sell a few hundred bottles for a bucket load. There is some very cool stuff going on in Hawke’s Bay from new people who look at life and their wines through a different lens and they are critical for the region. 

Small local models can work, but they do very little to move the dial as a reputation builder for a region. The high-end Chardonnay and Syrah a number of producers  are making is truly world class. And that is where the region’s future lies.

There is a lot of talk about the ultimate downfall of wine as the baby boomers who drove the fine wine market growth stop buying and drink their cellars. Gen X and Gen Y are in the middle of challenging lives, while bombarded by anti-alcohol propaganda. And Gen Z … well who knows what’s going on there except they are definitely drinking less. 

I for one don’t buy this downfall, but wine needs to find out where it can win and then stop being so bloody old fashioned about how people from all generations experience wine. Sparkling wine is the drink of choice at all important celebrations and wine is the only form of alcohol that enhances the dining experience. Wine connects you to nature and communities in beautiful rural locations more than anything else we consume. 

These are areas where wine can win. If wine is commoditised or pretends to be something else, then we lose our way.

And here is food for thought straight off the wires. After a  huge data analysis the American College of Cardiology has shown that moderate wine drinkers have a 21% lower risk of dying of a heart attack than those that don’t drink! Here’s my simple rule: Buy a bottle of Smith & Sheth Heretaunga Chardonnay on a Monday, have one glass a night for five nights ( it will still taste great on Friday), then you will live longer! 

Some givens

Are we witnessing the demise of the Hawke’s Bay wine industry? No, but it is sure going to change and probably quite quickly. I have a few things I know to be true.

1. The current global malaise affecting wine and all forms of alcohol doesn’t help, but everyone has that issue to deal with.
   
2. Great fine wine regions have a neat combination of very committed larger producers providing scale and visibility for expensive wines in the market globally. They sit alongside the sometimes very small producers that create the sex appeal and desirability. These small producers have often been able to scale and all these producers make wines that sell for between $500 and $1000 a bottle. 
   
   In Bordeaux Chateau Margaux alongside Le Pin, in Napa Valley Opus One and Phelps alongside Screaming Eagle and Harlan, in Australia Penfolds alongside Torbreck, in Burgundy Lafon alongside Latour. They thrive off each other. 
   
   Hawke’s Bay doesn’t have any of these properly expensive wines because the bigger players are not committed, and for many others ownership struggles have thwarted any momentum. We also don’t have enough of the sex appeal because that is very hard without the visibility provided by the larger players and it takes real passion and often very committed long term investors that need to believe.
   
   I hope like hell that Church Road is allowed to thrive under their new ownership and Tom can continue its fame and I would love to see Craggy Range making as much effort in telling their iconic Hawke’s Bay story globally as they do their Martinborough one. They have the cattle.
   
3. The retailers and restaurants in the country of origin for these producers are parochially passionate about their wines, especially their most revered and expensive. For some reason we don’t have that, not even here in Hawke’s Bay. A challenge to our hospitality and retail community, but also the Hawke’s Bay proposition needs to be more compelling for them. It’s all over the place right now.
   
4. We are tarnished internationally with the challenges of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc by both the commodity trading mentality of some of Marlborough’s locally owned larger producers, and a beverage trading mentality of several of the vertically integrated international wine companies.
   
5. We don’t have enough “halo generating”, revered, properly expensive wines ($500-$1000 per bottle) that are snapped up on release) that have a strong cellaring record and earnt their reputation over many vintages. All other regions in the Great Wine Capital group do.
   
6. Climate change is happening, we need to adapt quickly. 

Rip up the playbook

Years ago in a Stanford programme, I and 20 other CEOs from the New Zealand primary sector were asked: If you know what you know now, and from today you are in charge of New Zealand, and you are able to rip up the playbook and start again, what would you do? It’s a great way to start working out a truly unique value proposition and strategy.

So I applied this approach to the Hawke’s Bay wine scene over Easter, alongside abandoning the lo-carb and no-alcohol fast I’ve been on. 

If we were starting again and I was in charge of Hawke’s Bay Wine Inc., this is what I might do if I were brave, and maybe crazy.

1. Stop relying on awards, gold medals and high scores. To be honest, alone they don’t give you an edge, everyone can get them and they confuse the hell out of wine lovers. Take control of the narrative for Hawke’s Bay.
   
2. Develop an ambidextrous strategy – a Superstars platform with a Chardonnay and Syrah focus to properly engage the fine wine community, joined with a brave new platform called Maritime, which throws out the old ways of wine thinking, and make it cool. Both platforms operate and feed off one another. 
   
   Don’t make any wines in the region that don’t sign up to the strategy, or at least don’t allow them to be designated Hawke’s Bay. Now that would be controversial!
   
3. Superstars. Chardonnay and Syrah at the core, is a classification system that selects and then annually updates independently the collection of producers and wines that reach the highest standards. 
   
   The Langtons Classification has done this for Australia and Michelin has just released a system for wineries like they have for restaurants, Michelin Grapes. Proper rigorous classification, no gimmicks, no gold medals. It works. Ambitious producers are driven to be included because they know it helps make them successful. 
   
   These wines drive the reputational wine marketing for Hawke’s Bay. The Superstar category allows for ‘outliers’ that have proven their worth, Te Mata Coleraine and Church Road Tom being two examples. 
   
4. ‘Maritime’. Flip the thinking to what the new proper wine consumer might love. Let’s take the mystery and old fashioned-ness away, but create identity and retain quality and tell the story of our geographical and cultural (Te Matau-a-Māui) links to the Pacific Ocean.
   
   ‘Maritime’ is an overarching wine style story that is one of celebrating purity, freshness, softness alongside the delicious ripeness and generosity of Hawke’s Bay, without the significant influence of oak flavour or winemakers ego. How do you control that! 
   
   Producers put their own stamp on it so the wines have individuality not ego. It is modern and it is proper wine made according to agreed varieties, minimum specifications, stylistic approach and quality. Single varietals that are sexy, vintage dated at one level, but even more excitedly, high quality blended non-vintage wines simply named Maritime WH for white, Maritime RO for Rose, Maritime RD for red, and Maritime OR for orange. All priced at a premium level, $25-$40 because they are worth it. 
   
   This helps us deal with the climate change risk and gives modern wine lovers somewhere exciting and non-challenging to start, and no one else does it.
   
5. Begin Now. Make the 2025 vintage the first of the Superstar and Maritime story. I’d rip out what I don’t need for the future and not make what I can’t sell. Protect my vineyards of provenance with the love and care I have for my family. Hunker down, the next few years will not be easy.
   
6. Live being a Great Wine Capital. No one else in NZ has it and we are in good company internationally. Make sure Hawke’s Bay Tourism gets a brand new strategy with this at its core, showing our councils, who fund them, how prosperity across the whole region and population can be impacted by this laser sharp focus.

This has a pretty cool sound to it I reckon. With some fine tuning it might actually work! No doubt there will be doubters, and that at the end of the day may be our greatest challenge – far too many glass half emptyers!

To both the adventurous and the doubters I say: Never, ever, waste a good crisis!