Scarcity of available land and high demand push Marlborough prices through the roof
Unprecedented demand for land in Marlborough has resulted in prices being pushed up to an all time high, as land becomes increasingly scarce.
One producer in the region who has been witness to the rush to plant in the region is Mark Shaw of the Saint Clair Estate, which was established 40 years ago. “There is a bit of land grab going on at the moment, prices that we are seeing are pretty crazy,” he told The Shout, citing a vineyard that was recently sold for $NZ330,000 a hectare.
However, Jo Pearson from Sacred Hill Vineyards said she thought there was still further growth expected in the short term, before serious land shortages began to take effect, and farming practices such as the narrowing of vineyards would need to be considered.
Marlborough is “almost planted out” she said, though with a few areas still to come on stream within two to three years “As a result will see continual growth. It is a pretty significant investment if you are going to replant a 2.4m wide Sauvignon Blanc vineyard to 2m to get higher intensity planting,” she said.
Peter Yealands of the eponymous winery predicted a record vintage for the Marlborough region this year, of at least 350,000 tonnes.
“It will be business as usual for the next five years, but after that I suspect there is not going to be any typical vineyard land left in Marlborough,” he said, adding that in a couple of years it was likely that grape growers would start to put in terracing in the hills, to maximise growing capacity.
David Babich of Babich Wines concurred with Yealands that it will be a bumper year for the region, but expressed concern about the lack of land availability in years to come.
“This year will be a record vintage in Marlborough, and I think we still have some record vintages to come, but there are no big tracts of land now. If you want a greenfield vineyard it is 50 hectares, not 400 hectares and we are now getting into the marginal end of what is available - top of a valley or side of a hill - the harder and less economic propositions.
Meanwhile Philip Gregan, CEO of NZ Wine Growers said that Marlbourough's years of consecutive growth are likely to be numbered.
“People can see the end is in sight in terms of expansion in Marlborough, which has driven growth for the last 25 or 30 years,” he warned. “Traditional growing land is incredibly limited, so what does that mean for the industry? There are definitely going to be some interesting responses as this plays out over the next five years.”