A chat with Erica Crawford of Loveblock
Loveblock is an organic label from Marlborough’s Awatere Valley. Erica & Kim Crawford don’t just grow grapes - they follow a holistic, ecological and ethical approach to farming. The focus moves from healthy, balanced soil, through to lighter bottles and packaging, to what’s in the glass.
In the winery, much of the fermentation happens in clay amphorae, concrete eggs and oak barrels - the balance in the more traditional stainless steel tanks. Their dedication to lower sulphur use means the wine has a softer feel, more subtle aromas, and supple texture and mouth feel.
In their search for keep as many additives as possible out of their wine, the Crawfords have explored the use of tannin as an antioxidant to protect the wine instead of using the traditional SO2 - using the technique in the Loveblock TEE Sauvignon Blanc. The results are in the taste and worth a try even if Sauvignon is not usually your thing!
We caught up with Erica this week to find out more.
I've got a mixture of questions for you. Nothing terribly technical. I don't want to know about the clones or the pH of anything. I’m more about how wine makes you feel and that sort of thing. How did you end up in your place in the Awatere?
Oh, it's a long story. I mean, we were two young people and we made the Kim Crawford brand and, I think we were first to make and scale that model of buying from growers. Anyway, it got to a point where, growers didn't want to grow Pinot Noir, and for our little brand, we needed Pinot Noir.
And so we managed to scrape enough money together to buy a piece of grazing land and we couldn't quite afford the Wairau Valley. So we hot-footed it over to the Awatere Valley - at the time it was still called the Poor Man's Valley. And we first planted there in 2002. And have since expanded into a few vineyards in the area. So it's by quite a roundabout way.
If you could change one thing about it, about the place, would you?
I absolutely love the flavours that it gives you. I also think the remoteness of the valley contributes massively to everything. If you stand on the hills, at the Delta and look over the Wairau Valley…it’s busy, you know? With the Awatere Valley, the texture is different. The rows flow differently across the valley and it's more quiet.
So, that's the beautiful side of it! Practically though - what I would like to change is some of the soils on top of the hill! It’s a really challenging place to plant. If there could be a little bit less wind too, would be fantastic, but I can't change that. We have actually just recently purchased a winery and that comes with some vineyard land on the Rapaura Road. You just look at the crops, around there, it's phenomenal!
But what I'm really excited about is, how we can now extend our blend. You've got the sort of linearity and peachiness of the Awatere and then a little bit more of the tropics and the bullishness of the Rapaura Road. This year would be the first time we really look forward to that. For Sauvignon Blanc, it can be quite austere in one aspect, or too fruity in another aspect.
Why this, and in that place? Why not something else, somewhere else?
I think for me, I got into art school and I also got into science; and so I took the science route. I would like to take a bit more time to just rekindle that other love of mine. And to do a little bit more of that. But my dad always said “it's not a proper job”. I like the diversity of what we do from growing grapes, making wine, taking the route to market, the business end of it. But mostly I like people, you know?
I saw that you were involved with the Global Women New Zealand Advisory Board. I feel there’s been an upswing of confidence of women in the New Zealand wine industry from the top to the bottom. From CEO down to viticulture and winemakers and that's important, isn't it?
Yes, I'm not on that anymore because you cycle out, but I did all of those things. I think it's really important and I did a late career change and studied for, got a degree in viticulture. More and more women joined the fray and there are a lot more women in viticulture - and that's a tough job. I have employed a young woman from Chile for our technical viticulture and is doing a fantastic job. And then, of course, we're seeing the first female CEO of New Zealand Wine Growers.
I've been a recipient of many of those unintended, and intended, comments. Just last year, I was introduced as “the owner's wife”.
The owner’s wife? Wow. But do you actually play different roles in what you do?
Yeah, totally. It was probably more clear cut with Kim Crawford, because Kim was basically the brand, wasn't he? And he did the wine. It was quite easy. But what we then realised after the sale of that is that neither of us knew enough about growing grapes. So that's why I went and did the degree in viticulture - my interest is definitely there.
I suppose with Loveblock, I set the style more. And, the winemaking is just completely different. I’m more in the business end, although of course I understand winemaking - I can help if I need to. But it's not my thing. When it comes to moving wine - so many 1000 litres in here, and in there, and then moving it back again, I get lost. So that's why I hire people!
How does the idea of organic wine growing and winemaking influence the way you operate?
Massively. And I mean, obviously it starts in the vineyard, because that's where the bulk of it happens. The soil takes ten years before it starts showing the benefit. We started practising organics in 2008. We now see those blocks are more resilient and with a consistency of flavour profile that you get year in, year out. In the vineyard, it's amazing how the soil has changed, and the whole place has changed.
From a market perspective, I recently did a good old ‘portfolio tour’ with an Australian organic importer, and I think that there's definitely more demand for organic wine than there has been before. People are really concerned about what they put in their bodies.
There's been a few changes in the Marlborough wine landscape over the time you've been there. What do you think is next for the region?
I think that Pinot Noir is starting to show so beautifully now because of vine age. Being an Estate - which is not that common in New Zealand - I think we’re either very small producers, or families who have been in it for a long time. So there’s not a lot of us. But the beauty of it is, you see the same wine from the same block every year, and you can definitely notice the shift in balance as vines get a bit of age in them. So we're now sitting at 25 years or so, and you can definitely see the difference - there's a difference in balance.
Especially when it comes to organics and and biodynamics, it's really important in viticulture. And, you know, the latest buzzword, of course, is ‘Regen Ag’. Which is basically just growing cover crops, but still spraying your glysophate. I think organic farmers are probably the masters of regenerative agriculture.
We know that because the vines are having to compete with under-vine weeds, and they don't get all the fertiliser that they usually would get, the vines tend to be, especially initially, a little bit smaller. So they struggled. But then I started noticing the softness on the palate. And I now know it was the reduced use of sulphur and sulphides that give you that. And so for us, it was just more eliminating additives. So if this is what low sulphur does to wine, then what will happen if we don't add any PMS and sulphides? The wines are softer, - it doesn't jump out the glass and announce itself so much.
I like the story behind the ‘Tee Sauvignon Blanc’, but then I liked the wine as well, which is important. It's not just, oh, well, you know, I should like this. It's whether I actually like it. Were you just trying to make the best wine you could? Was there more to it than that? Were you trying to make a specific sort of point and moving things forward or was it just like, if we do this, the wine will be better?
The product had been available for about 17 years and it's made for botrytised grapes. Because in botrytis, the laccase enzymes get activated, and that causes oxidation. So if you just follow the chemistry, and you add this tannin to the grapes in the first instance and then to the wine every time it is exposed to oxygen, it should protect it. So that was the thesis behind it and it worked.
It took us like a year or so to sort out the management of it - like, how do you actually do it? But it worked incredibly well. Being on the list of Wine Spectator’s Top 100 at number 33 was so special because it is such a traditional publication, that put such an experimental wine on that list that. I was pretty proud of that.
When people talk about low intervention wines - what does low intervention look like for you?
I mean, for us, obviously, with organics, you eliminate a bunch of things. It's a little bit like giving someone a full pantry and giving you six ingredients and you've got to cook a dish of the same quality, and tastes equally delicious.
Everything is predicated by good fruit, but you definitely have to be very careful - flawless winemaking, really. Let's just look at sulphides, for instance. Organic says you've got to keep your sulphides under 100 parts per million milligrams per litre. Usually it sits round about 160-ish. And for Sauvignon Blanc, most people add PMS - elemental sulphur and ascorbic acid - on the grapes, and that's to protect the vine. The winemakers will say it is to manage the phenolics, but it's essentially to protect the vines precursors from activating.
We can't do that. If we do that, then you take your levels over 100. We usually sit around about 50, 60 parts of a million. So that's pretty low. The other thing with these vineyards is they have a greater population of native yeast. So things tend to go off on their native yeasts a lot more. So those are just two simple little examples.
How has your taste and/or approach changed over time?
Oh, massively - I'm looking for more layering and texture as opposed to big aromatics. So we're quite happy to sacrifice aromatics for texture. I tend to gravitate more to old world style wines than than the boisterousness of some of the new world wines.
Maybe it's just age, but I don't think so. I think what I see around the world as well, even in America, is that people are looking for more. People just move on. You get comfortable with one thing, and then you want to explore more. My view is very much that.
Again, I talk about Sauvignon Blanc. It's a noble grape. And people now think that, from New Zealand, it only looks one way. When, in fact, of course, it doesn't. So that's what I think we're busy doing and there are others like us, such as Dog Point and Te Whare Ra where we explore a little bit more differently. It can't keep on looking the same way.
The world does love Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. I was talking to somebody who'd been in the industry quite a while, at the beginning of the year, and he was saying that what young people seem to want now are wines of immediacy.
Although Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is still incredibly popular - so it's decline is less than other than other categories! We are one of the few growers still doing Gewürztraminer. I mean everybody's got an opinion and different young people want different things Obviously we know that drinking and health is becoming quite a big thing.
What I see around the world is the old big red wine drinkers and the heavy bottles are becoming fewer and fewer. And young people are gravitating towards white wine and lighter wines. They have absolutely no qualms putting wine in spirits or added spirit to their wine. So they drink quite adventurously, I think.
What do you think separates good wine from great wine?
Traditionally, people would say age-ability. I agree that we don't give it enough time. We had some Americans visitors and pulled out a few of the library wines - a 2011 Riesling which was just amazing, and a 2015 Pinot Noir. But the markets are saying ‘no, we want 2023 - you need to release it’. We've probably made a rod for our own back, you know, releasing the Sauvignons, particularly, so early. But people don’t want to wait.
What's a lesson you've learned that's changed how you work?
Probably observation - in organics. You have to wait for the vines to be ready, then do things to them, and not do things to them when they're not ready. I suppose it's submission to the land.
I go back to Sauvignon, because that's what we all do. We were part of that wave. In fact, Kim and I set the standard for New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in the USA. And it was really making everything bigger. Both the green flavours and the fruit flavours… and so now we actively pull back in the viticulture on the green flavours by just managing the canopy differently. So observation matters.
If you had to break one rule of winemaking, what would it be?
I think it's just for people to think outside of the box a little bit, like we did with the tannin project. So, I think people just need to be brave. I'd like to see people being a little bit more brave and do things. You know, like Louis Vavasor putting his wine down into the ocean to age?
What's your guilty pleasure?
You know what? On a Friday evening when when you’re just tired and you just want to go home. Then I will just grab a glass of Pinot Gris and I will grab a bowl of Doritos and the remote control and I'm happy.
We all planted Pinot Gris in the in the 2000s like crazy and added all sorts of things and you had all these young vines but I don’t think they were very good. But as we see the vines getting older, and with organics, I say, stressed, the flavours come on earlier. So now we can make dry Pinot Gris with flavour, and without that sort of boisterous thing happening. I also think that Pinot Gris needs bottle time, doesn't it?
Sometimes, slowing down in the winery as well doesn't do any harm either. Just just let it sit on lees.
Wine takes time. It takes an entire year to make it, and then it takes another year to come into its own. So don't rush things.
Glengarry stocks the full portfolio of Love Block wines. We asked David Walker Bell of WineFolio to have a taste through the range - here are his thoughts…
Loveblock Sauvignon Blanc 2023 The aromas aren’t probably what you’d expect from this varietal and location. Elderflower, lemongrass, almond, peach, and chamomile. Although dry, it is broad and vivacious on the palate, with lovely acidity.
Loveblock Dry Riesling 2024 Vibrant grapefruit, lime and pear notes with flinty minerality. A burst of acidity, a hint of spice and a touch of honey. Elegant, tight and - as labelled - very dry.
Loveblock Gewürztraminer 2024 A tightrope of fragrance and texture. Floral, exotic and peppery with musk, melon and lychee adding richness. The palate is sweet-fruited but somehow dry as well - the acidity carries you to a lingering finish.
Loveblock Pinot Gris 2023 Deliciously aromatic – green melon, fig, nectarine, white peach and ginger, highlighted with herbal and floral notes. A light touch to the palate, where a chalky granite character meets a silky texture.
Loveblock Central Otago Pinot Noir 2022 An elegant expression, with complexity and weight to the palate. Succulent fruit in the dark red spectrum – cherry, bramble, raspberry with lilac florals. The crunch of ripe fruit alongside a touch of savoury soy, pepper and thyme.
