A century of wine experience: Peter Robertson & Paul Mooney

[As published in July/August BayBuzz magazine.]

“We’re in here Paul!” Peter Robertson bellows. The cellar door at Brookfields squeaks open and someone scuffles around outside while Peter and I chat beside the spitting fireplace in the room next door. 

Paul Mooney, senior winemaker at Mission Estate has just journeyed across from Taradale, post-lunch with Oz Clark, one of the world’s most famous wine writers. 

Peter (72) bought Brookfields in 1977, 47 years ago. And when I sat down with these two old mates, Paul (69) was about to launch into an historic 45th vintage for Mission Estate, New Zealand’s oldest winery. Together they’ve racked up close to a century in wine experience. 

“We actually had the same mentor,” blurts Paul. Peter looks at him quizzically, “My old boss, Brother John!” Paul reminds him. The penny drops, Peter nods, “Ahh true!” 

Brother John Cuttance (he died in 2021 at the age of 95) was a handsome ex-pharmacist working at the Mission in 1954 under their winemaker Brother Basil. It was the beginning of a long, largely unsung but unspeakably influential career in winemaking. Together with the late Brother Joe Lamb he studied viticulture and winemaking in France and brought new ideas and techniques, one of which, the méthode traditionelle, resulted in New Zealand’s first champagne-type wine. 

Named Fontanella (Italian for ‘Little Fountain’), it was made from pinot meunier that grew in what’s now the ‘concert paddock’. “He had to build the gear to make it himself because there was no equipment, which was amazing really,” reminisced Paul. “You couldn’t just go down the shops and buy sparkling wine machinery. Fontanella was a pretty good wine and it was allocated to just two bottles per person, so it was the height of cool and sophistication to own. And it sold for four bucks!” Paul laughs. “Back in the 1960s four bucks was probably the equivalent of fifty or eighty bucks today!” (Reader, actually $99). “Brother John also had all the winemaking textbooks of the time and I’ve still got them,” shrugs Paul. “Huge tomes they were. I was incredibly lucky to have all those resources available to me way back then.” 

Paul met Cuttance in 1979 when he started winemaking at the Mission at the age of 24. Born and raised in Alexandra, he graduated from Otago Uni and worked for a year as a DSIR ionosonde technician on Campbell Island in the sub-Antarctic. “I was allowed to take two dozen bottles of wine to the island, so I took a case each of cabernet from McWilliam’s and Nobilo. I’ve always really liked wine, even as a kid,” muses Paul. “My father was mates with Paul Hitchcock, who ran the wine research station at Te Kauwhata and I remember visiting there with Dad.” 

Paul went from electrophysics in the sub-Antarctic to a short stint as an oil and gas engineer before hearing about a winemaking job in Hawke’s Bay. “I thought, shit that’d be cool! My brother in law, Ian Clark was the manager at Mission so there was a bit of nepotism happening,” Paul laughs. “Winemaking was way more fun than geophysics,” he laughs. “As soon as I stepped into that winery I fell in love. Working in the cellar captivated me and I immediately clicked with the brothers. They were huge, salt-of-the-earth characters.” 

Born into a family of West Otago racehorse trainers, Peter also came to Hawke’s Bay after studying sciences at Otago. “I’d been keen on wine since discovering it at university, and I used a connection with the Barker family in Geraldine to get a holiday job at their fruit wine company before heading to Lincoln to do post-grad wine training.” That’s where Peter met the now-renowned wine consultant Danny Schuster, spending a year making wine with him and flatting in the same house as the famous Wizard of Christchurch. 

Australia and South Africa beckoned and Peter found himself stopping in Hawke’s Bay mid-transit. “I needed money to travel overseas and someone told me to phone this man called Mr McDonald for a job. We argued on the phone because he wanted me to start immediately, whereas I wanted some time to have a look around.” ‘Look around’ is dude-code for ‘find pubs and meet girls’. “So anyway the next day I began working at McWilliams under the legendary Tom McDonald,” Peter laughs.

It was McDonald who told Peter that Brookfields was for sale. Word around the traps is that he was a tough taskmaster and Peter doesn’t disagree. “But he was extremely fair. Nineteen, twenty stone, a hard man with massive wrists and very physically imposing. But he was very good to me and I learned an enormous amount from him. At the end of vintage he’d say “Peter! There’s a box at the door for you, grab it on the way out.” And it’d be wines from the cellar that were absolute treasures. And equally he was amazingly generous with his own wines that you’d never get to taste otherwise. After Tom retired I’d go see him on a Sunday morning and we’d knock off a bottle of Burgundy,” he chuckles. 

Speaking of knocking things off, winery health and safety back in those days wasn’t really a thing as Peter found out when he fell 14ft onto concrete. “I was up a ladder on a 40,000 gallon tank with no safety chain. Somebody yelled “Smoko!” and in the excitement the ladder got kicked out and smash! I woke up in hospital the next day”. Legislative compliance might be a grind, but it’s essential. “It’s so different from the old days,” shrugs Paul, “I mean if there was a problem with an electrical fitting I’d just fix it myself, but if you did that now you’d be toast.”

For young men in their twenties, making wine in the 70s was clearly a heck of a time. “The atmosphere at Mission was classic,” grins Paul. “The brothers were hilarious,” laughs Peter. “I never actually worked at Mission but I spent a LOT of time there. When I bought Brookfields in 1977, my first customers were actually a car-load of brothers! John, Joe, Mark and James.” 

“Back then all us winegrowers made up a good fraternity,” added Peter. “Without the support of the local winemaking community I mightn’t have made it”. And that Hawke’s Bay community consisted of Mission, Brookfields, Glenvale, Te Mata, Eskdale Winegrowers, McWilliams and Vidal’s, nothing compared to the 26 cellar doors we have in 2024.”

Theoretically Brookfields vineyards has been operating since 1937, but Peter reckons it was probably long before that. Regardless, it’s Hawke’s Bay’s oldest ‘boutique’ winery and Paul was a happy regular. “Pete held these tastings and local winemakers would each bring along a bottle in a paper bag for everyone to taste. There were about ten of us. Kim Salonius, a couple of guys from McWilliams, Alwyn Corbyn from Ngatarawa and Evan Ward from Morton. We used to have a great time,” says Paul. 

The famous Brookfields blind tastings still happen every week, making it one of the oldest continual wine tasting groups in the country. “They sort of grew from Tom McDonald’s Thursday tastings,” adds Peter. They were also an excellent way for winemakers to expand their tastes and avoid getting a ‘cellar palate’. 

“And speaking of cellars, wine tech today is so different,” muses Paul. “Back then we needed about seven or eight people to make the wine because the gear was so primitive.” “God wasn’t it!” agrees Peter. “Now you can do three or four times the volume with only three or four people.” Crossflow filtration came along which absolutely improved the wine and definitely the types of presses has improved dramatically,” adds Paul. “The crushing and pressing gear back in our early days were pretty rough. Yet the biggest change was when we were able to start buying new French oak barrels,” he adds. “Before that, all our wines were made in these ancient foudres and our cabernet was matured in old whisky or brandy barrels which weren’t great for making wine. We got our first new barrel in 1981 I think.” “And from memory the initial barrels came from France unassembled,” added Peter. “Which was a bit tricky.” 

Back then the grapes in the ground were also very different and very average. But the government vine-pull scheme of 1986 allowed growers like Peter to get rid of their Muller Thurgau, Chasselas, Folle Blanc and inferior hybrid stuff and replace them with classics like pinot gris. 

You wouldn’t know it now, but one grape that was really hard to source 40 years ago was chardonnay. “Hardly anyone was growing it,” shrugs Paul. “We’d get a tonne or two off Chris Pask’s block at Korokipo, but that was it. Chardonnay’s amazing because you can grow it anywhere and on heavier soils where you don’t need irrigation, chardonnay just thrives,” he adds. “Drip irrigation was an Israeli innovation introduced to Hawke’s Bay in the early 80s which finally made growing grapes out in the Gimblett Gravels and Bridge Pa Triangle possible,” adds Paul. “Really?” I ask. “Yep, I’m pretty sure it was developed in Israel. But you should probably check that.” “No. I’m not going to check it,” I say. Peter laughs, “I wouldn’t either, who cares, it’s a good story.”

Like the story of Chris Pask buying 40ha in the Gimblett Gravels in 1981 and planting Bordeaux-style reds which, when they were released in ’85 and ’86, took the wine show scene by storm and spotlit Hawke’s Bay. “There were other pioneers growing grapes out there like John Kenderdine, David Irving, Gavin Yortt and Alan Limmer. 

But when Chris started producing reds from the Gravels they were transformative,” says Paul. “We were trying to grow cabernet in Taradale and Meeanee but the soils were so heavy and the vines so vigorous, that the wines came out light, weak and green in comparison. Chris’s wines from the gravels tasted so good and I was so jealous!” he laughs. 

“The other major development was finally being able to improve the clonal selection of our plantings,” adds Peter. “For decades we had plant material which didn’t suit our sites. Now there’s an amazing array and you can pick and choose anything you want.”

Paul agrees. “Shit it made a massive difference when we were able to move from our old merlot clones to the new ones. We called those old clones ‘Balloons’. “That’s right!” laughs Peter. “The berries were SO huge! When I went to Bordeaux and saw their merlot, I couldn’t believe the berries were so tiny! And we had these bloody huge Muscat Hamburgs that’d been called ‘merlot’ and it was just ridiculous.”

And of course, EIT becoming a major wine science training provider was a major plus for Hawke’s Bay wine and the collective expertise without question,” adds Peter.

Do they still buzz about making wine? “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t still get a rush with every vintage,” shrugs Peter. “The wonderful thing about working in a winery is every day’s different and I never feel down about going to work. I wake up excited about what the day will bring and that’s a blessing. I mean I could’ve been a horse trainer or a high school teacher instead, but I have no regrets and I’d do the same again.”

“Yep, totally,” agrees Paul. “If I hadn’t gone into wine, I could’ve continued studying physics or kept working as a technician. Wouldn’t go back to Campbell Island though, hell no! But it was an amazing place. Wildlife like albatross, petrels, penguins, seals and elephant seals.” 

Peter’s eyes light up “They’re marvelous!” “They’re big boys eh,” says Paul. “Oh heck yes,” agrees Peter. “Ever come across one?” Paul asks. “I used to go down to Paterson inlet on Ulva Island” says Peter. “Once we were out on these 26 ft boats and found ourselves in the middle of a school of them. If one had come up under the boat, it would have easily tipped us. They were enormous!” 

This prompts Paul to get up and demonstrate, using tables and chairs, just how large the creatures are. “We used to tease them. You’d see a 2-3 tonne bull on the beach, and you’d make them chase after you and they’d look really funny. You’d always outrun them, but shit if one caught you, you’d be history.” Peter agrees. “There was once a sea lion that I thought I’d outrun, but I turned around and it was right behind me! He’d accelerated. They’re quite devious.”

And that’s where I leave them, just two legends of Hawke’s Bay wine talking about teasing seals. 

Yvonne Lorkin is a wine writer, the Co-Founder and CTO of WineFriend (NZ’s No.1 personalised wine subscription service) and she’s a proud, born and bred Hawkesbaylien. winefriend.co.nz or yvonnelorkin.com