User talk:Kindofastudent

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Te Mata Estate
Te Mata Estate seems to be the only article on Wikipedia that you edit, however I will assume in good faith that you do not work there and are not otherwise engaged in their marketing (since that would be against WP:SOAP point 5). Regardless, thank you for your efforts in keeping it up to date. However we disagree about whether Te Mata is New Zealand's oldest wine estate, since The Mission Estate claims continuous operation since 1851, and Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand asserts that Mission Estate are "New Zealand’s oldest surviving winemakers" as does Cooper's NZ Wine Atlas and other reference works. Jon (talk) 11:44, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

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Hi, I'm a WSET Diploma student and this a fairly regularly-discussed question within wine in New Zealand. I grew up in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand and know the area history pretty well. The statement that Te Mata is New Zealand's oldest winery and oldest wine estate is pretty common knowledge to wine professionals in NZ and locals in Hawke's Bay. It is just a matter of separating marketing from public record. Thanks for the opportunity to confirm these details. Sorry for the long answer, have tried to keep it on point.The two references you cite actually provide plenty of evidence. (Page numbers below.) We can add them as sources for this Te Mata page too - if that's best practice...

The first thing to clarify is the difference between the mission community that existed in Meannee: https://www.google.co.nz/maps/place/Meeanee,+Napier/@-39.5434321,176.8535141,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x6d69b4b960a3db75:0x500ef6143a2e390!8m2!3d-39.5432015!4d176.8877137 and the current winery buildings and brand known as Mission Estate Winery in Greenmeadows: https://www.google.co.nz/maps?q=greenmeadows&rlz=1C1SQJL_enNZ771NZ771&um=1&ie=UTF- 8&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXy7P3it_eAhXTbn0KHSRfBfUQ_AUIDigB

As the Te Ara encyclopedia makes clear, the people at the mission in Meannee were not NZ's first winemakers. https://teara.govt.nz/en/wine/page-1 There was ‘a mission station’ [Location 1], and wine was made there, but that community owned no buildings at the current Greenmeadows site where the Mission Estate is now based [Location 2]. 1890s Hawke's Bay also had a group of serious commercial winemakers and that Greenmeadows site was a very well-regarded vineyard that – until 1897 – belonged to Hawke's Bay wine entrepreneur Henry Tiffens. https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1t99/tiffen-henry-stokes In 1897 that Greenmeadows property was bought from the Tiffens family by Bartholomew Steinmetz. The Mission's website kind-of 'selectively' confirms something close to this chronology. ‘In 1897 the 800-acre Mission Estate was purchased from the Tiffen family. The Marist brothers travelled each day from Meeanee to work the new land where a small orchard and some vines were planted. The first grapes were tended on the gently sloping land of the southern spur and the terraced area that is now used for the annual Mission Concert.' https://missionestate.co.nz/mission-estate-winery-the-birthplace-of-nz-wine/

For whatever reason The Mission's marketing chooses to gloss over the fact that Bartholomew Steinmetz’s, that individual who actually purchased the property from Tiffens, no longer worked at the mission station, and by then ‘had left the Society of Mary.' ('Wine Stories from Hawke's Bay' by Mark Sweet, ISBN 9780473333485, published 2015)

Regardless, if you compare these dates to Te Mata Estate and the other reference work you're citing, Michael Coopers Wine Atlas of New Zealand (ISBN 9781869589219, published 2002 by Hodder Moa) the page 13 profile of Bernard Chambers (the owner of Te Mata) states: 'Chambers converted a brick stable into his cellars and by March 1895 the first wine was flowing.' The following quote is from Keith Stewart, author of 'Te Mata Estate - The First 100 Years' (ISBN: 9780908877348) and 'Chancers And Visionaries: A History of New Zealand Wine' (ISBN 9781869620707): 'The vintages of 1895 and 96 had been processed in the brick lean-to stable which had been cleared of its occupants and trapping, and the vineyard had been expanded with the addition of white varieties.' This is the same stable-to-winery conversion still to be seen today at Te Mata. The Atlas, and two books on wine in the Hawke's Bay region specifically agree in their record of wine making at Te Mata as established as 1895, two years before the property that would later became known as Mission Estate Winery was purchased in 1897. The reason that Te Ara encyclopedia cited (https://teara.govt.nz/en/wine/page-1) does not refer 'the oldest winery' or 'oldest wine estate' for good reason. (instead using the title 'A Vintage Estate' and 'the oldest surviving winemakers') is because in 1895 and 1896 Mission Estate Winery did not exist.

Page 134 from the same Michael Cooper's NZ Wine Atlas clarifies this point, and is maybe what could most-usefully cited for this Te Mata page: 'Today this historic thriving wine region boasts the oldest wine making concern in New Zealand still under the same management - Mission Vineyards, established by the Catholic Society of Mary in 1851 - and at Te Mata Estate can be seen the oldest winery still operating, erected in stages from the 1870s.'

The distinction being made here is between the Misson - a 'wine making concern under the same management’ (i.e. not a winery or an estate), and Te Mata 'the oldest winery still operating’.

Sub note:

After 1897 there was still another decade before the Mission Estate Winery was setup onsite and based it's wine making there.

From the Mission's website: ‘In 1909 Father Smythe decided to move the Mission community to the present site.' https://missionestate.co.nz/mission-estate-winery-the-birthplace-of-nz-wine/ From Te Ara’s Encyclopedia page: 'The brothers first grew grapes in Greenmeadows in 1897. Mission Estate’s wine making has been based there since 1910.’ https://teara.govt.nz/en/wine/page-1 By 1909 or 1910, when the Mission Estate winery physically established their presence and based their wine making on the property, Te Mata had already been functioning as a commercial winery, with vineyards and barrel halls in use continuous use in Havelock North, for thirteen years.

Within that time, Te Mata and had also become the largest commercial winery in New Zealand. (Keith Stewart, who wrote 'Te Mata Estate - The First 100 Years', ISBN: 9780908877348)

Conclusion:

Yes, missionaries made wine in Hawke's Bay, but Mission Estate Winery does appears to make several unsubstantiated claims in its marketing or, to be generous, blurs its terms to suit a brand narrative that ignores physical evidence and historical record. Why? I just don’t know.

In terms of buildings and vineyards the starkest proof though is that both places are open to the public. When anybody visits the Mission there is a nice restored seminary building there, as detailed above it was brought from the original mission station in 1909/1910. There are also smart, modern, wine making buildings. However, what there is not, is a single nineteenth-century winery building to see.

With estate vineyards planted in 1892 and a stables converted for wine making by 1895, these things do exist at Te Mata Estate, have remained in operation up to today, and are publicly visible.

This is why a recent guide like the 2018 ‘Lonely Planet's Wine Trails Australia and New Zealand' (ISBN 9781178701769, published 2018), has only one statement listed for tourists who might visit Te Mata: 'Te Mata Estate - The country's oldest winery, with wines still being made in the original buildings.'  Kindofastudent (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2018 (UTC)


 * ... righto then! I'm sure we can fix up the opening paragraph with the above in mind. Also, you are hereby recruited to help us update the New Zealand wine article :-) Especially the waffly bits about Pinot Noir which I've left alone, because basically I don't know enough about it (or indeed, frankly, what the fuss is all about, wishy-washy swill for the US market that most of it is...) I've been thinking about separating out the regions into separate articles - someone did Central Otago wine region a few years ago, but there really ought to be one for at least Marlborough and Hawke's Bay, and then perhaps Gisborne, Auckland and Martinborough as well. They should follow the pattern for other wine regions, e.g. Hawke's Bay (wine), following Barossa Valley (wine) and the like, in the absence of appelations (although three that approximate the idea of an appelation are Gimblett Gravels, Bridge Pa Triangle, and Méthode Marlborough). Jon (talk) 13:25, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * .... Awesome! Thank you! I'd love to! Great summer project for me thanks. Will give it my best shot and open to any discussion of course. Cheers