Decanter World Wine Awards
Size, though, is all.
Half a million earthquakes affect our planet every year, but humans only sense one in five of them. The world can expect 18 major quakes (magnitude 7-7.9 on the Richter scale) a year, plus one great quake (magnitude 8 or more).
Europe isn’t immune. The Lisbon earthquake of November 1755 (in fact it happened 200 km out in the Atlantic) was, at 8.7, one of the greatest in recorded history, and the Messina catastrophe of December 1908 was one of three major quakes to affect Italy since the late seventeenth century.
It’s in what’s known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, though, that the risk rises steeply: this zone experiences 91 per cent of all the world’s earthquakes, and 81 per cent of the largest.
As the name suggests, jostling tectonic plates in and around the Pacific are to blame.
If, as an aspiring winemaker, you feel that earthquakes are simply one risk too far, then the zones to avoid are Chile (the highest risk of all, with three of the nine worst earthquakes in recorded history -- last year’s Maule quake caused USD $250 million’s worth of damage); the Western seaboard of the USA, and especially Southern California; Japan … and New Zealand, where two significant earthquakes in the last six months in and around Christchurch on the South Island have struck to tragic effect.
The country sits on the boundary of the Pacific and Australia plates with an unusually large movement zone between them, hence the fact that the country has suffered 17 major and one great quake since 1843 alone.
The most earthquake-prone parts of New Zealand are, in fact, wine regions: Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa (Martinborough), Marlborough and Canterbury have all experienced one or more major quake since 1843, and they won’t be the last.
Indeed Kiwi geologists (like the great Harold Wellman) have made a speciality of reading recent earth movements in the landscape.
The ridges, hills, mountains and rivers in key New Zealand wine zones are all unusually mobile, displaced by diagonal fault lines which move almost 50 mm a year from northeast to southwest.
It’s some of the greatest winemaking terroir in the Southern Hemisphere; it’s beautiful country; but it will always be dangerous.
Have your say!
Andrew Jefford
March 03 08:42
Christina, so far as I know there is no general research on this very broadly defined topic, and trying to prove any kind of link between the mineral composition of rocks and soils and wine flavour is always difficult. What is certain, though, is that weathering changes the mineral composition of rocks and soils, so that ancient regoliths will tend to have a different compositional spectrum to younger ones. It is counter-intuitive to me to think that that won't have any kind of impact on wine aroma and flavour. The soils of New Zealand and Western Australia are almost a perfect contrast in this case: young and ancient. One day we will understand more. I wouldn't assume that young can't mean 'complex', though. Many winemaking soils in France are relatively young, including all of Bordeaux, much of the Southern Rhone, and Champagne, too.
Steve Connolly
March 01 11:35
We had a lovely time at Crab Farm winery near Napier Airport. This used to get flooded at high tide, hence the name and was useless for anything, but after the 1931 earthquake which gave Napier its Art Deco design, it rose several feet and now makes some lovely wines. It's nice to know some good can come from these disasters.
Christina Pate
February 28 20:15
Thank you for your note, Andrew. As a kiwi, I confess I am not thinking of vines very much right now, but your post did remind me of a question that has intrigued me for a while now - have you seen any research on whether the age of rocks and soil has any impact on vines and the wine they produce? NZ is a very young country geologically, and as you point out, subject to regular upheaval. Even where our vines are of a comparable age to other regions, the wine seems to be more exuberant, less complex. I realise there are many other factors at play, and most research I have seen has been unable to isolate any influence of soil composition as opposed to drainage, exposition etc.
Nicola
February 28 14:30
Good reflective article . The destruction is huge , and they are not sure if they will be able to rebuild ChCh ...... NZ is such a young country , that even though ChCh was considered low risk ( the big one as expected in Wellington ) , who knows what is around the corner . However , that great kiwi spirit lives on !
Nicola ( a kiwi making wine in france )