Chris Archer – Wine Innovator. Chris Archer is passionate about everything he does. This clearly shows as he lovingly lifts a special bottle out of its wooden box. This bottle contains the first commercial wine that he produced, Tyrrells 1994 Vat 6 Pinot Noir. The look on his face shows how proud he is of it.
He’s just as excited as he walks me down the rows of the home vineyard next to his house, on the outskirts of Martinborough. I try to keep up with his explanations about how he has planted some of the vines closely together and how this affects cropping and other features. A lot of it goes over my head, but I can tell that he is determined to make the very best Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
After leaving school, Chris worked at Tyrrells, in the Hunter Valley, as a cellar hand. He was brought up on his family’s cattle station nearby and had helped out on it through twelve years of drought. “It was tough going”, he tells me. At Tyrrells, he quickly rose up the ranks and completed a wine-making degree at Roseworthy College. In 1995 he left to become the winemaker for Pepper Tree, where his wines won many trophies world-wide.
Chris had met many New Zealand winemakers working on vintages in the Hunter and was enticed to come to NZ in 2000 to be the winemaker for Morton Estate. From there he moved to Martinborough to make wines for Alana Estate. In 2009 he set up the business Archer McRae with his wife Cath and made wines under this label but also started thinking more innovatively. He could see problems coming for the wine industry with too much wine being produced and a decreasing number of wine drinkers. He wanted to approach things differently and not be held back by convention and tradition. He saw Riesling as an adaptable and plentiful grape but wanted to present it differently and came up with the idea of making it into light, refreshing, sparkling drink.
He named it “Ritzling”. It was a great success, but the name was contested by the Ritz Hotel chain and so he had to think of a new label.
At the time, it was sold in small bottles but Chris’s next innovation was to package his wines in cans.
Since those early days of producing his wines in cans, Chris has worked hard to overcome many obstacles, but now he’s confident it will work.
His brand is Joiy and he produces quality wines packaged in cans.
Some are from the Clare Valley in Australia and some from New Zealand. Next year there will be a Pinot Noir from Martinborough and a Pinot Gris from Gladstone included in the range. The wines are available widely throughout New Zealand and overseas.
He has always had a love of learning and this was a way he could learn about governance and also make Wairarapa better.
Although Chris reaches a world-wide market, he is firmly based in Martinborough. Recently he was elected as a councillor for South Wairarapa. I asked him why he wanted to take this on when he was so busy in the wine industry. He replied that he has always had a love of learning and this was a way he could learn about governance and also make Wairarapa better.
But then he added, “It’s also about self-protection. I could easily become a hermit, so this forces me into the public realm”.
