New Zealand wine

New Zealand wine is largely produced in ten major wine growing regions spanning latitudes 36° to 45° South and extending 1,600 kilometres (990 mi). They are, from north to south Northland, Auckland, Waikato/Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury/Waipara and Central Otago.

Wine making and vine growing go back to colonial times in New Zealand. British Resident and keen oenologist James Busby was, as early as 1836, attempting to produce wine at his land in Waitangi. In 1851 New Zealand's oldest existing vineyard was established by French Roman Catholic missionaries at Mission Estate in Hawke's Bay. In 1883 William Henry Beetham was recognised as being the first pioneer to plant Pinot Noir and Hermitage (Syrah) grapes in New Zealand at his Lansdowne vineyard in Masterton. In 1895 the expert consultant viticulturist and oenologist Romeo Bragato was invited by the NZ government's Department of Agriculture to investigate winemaking possibilities and after tasting Beetham's Hermitage he concluded that the Wairarapa and New Zealand was "pre-eminently suited to viticulture". Beetham was supported in his endeavours by his French wife Marie Zelie Hermance Frere Beetham. Their partnership and innovation to pursue winemaking helped form the basis of modern New Zealand's viticulture practices. Due to economic (the importance of animal agriculture and the protein export industry), legislative (prohibition and the temperance) and cultural factors (the overwhelming predominance of beer and spirit drinking British immigrants), wine was for many years a marginal activity in terms of economic importance. Dalmatian immigrants arriving in New Zealand at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century brought with them viticultural knowledge and planted vineyards in West and North Auckland. Typically, their vineyards produced sherry and port for the palates of New Zealanders of the time, and table wine for their own community.

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