For wineries, provenance and purity of the environment in which the wine was made are integral aspects of their story. The Gimblett Gravels area in Hawke’s Bay and Te Muna Road area of Martinborough provide the optimal conditions for Craggy Range’s vines, and telling the story of this land to customers has been critical.
“I often start presentations with a collection of short movies about New Zealand. I talk about being the youngest country, the last to be settled, a country before human settlement of rainforests and birds, a country where almost every part of it is touched by the influence of the ocean, where our vines breathe the purest air in the world. People love the concept of ‘our relationship with the land’. It puts a very human face to a product of the land. It’s powerful and I believe it is firmly embedded in our products, they taste fresh, pure and energetic because of the youth and purity of our place. It’s compelling and a real point of difference from the rest of the world,” Smith says.
As New Zealanders, the story of where we come from and the beauty and purity of our natural resources speaks to only a small part of the value our businesses can offer an international audience. The integrity and resourcefulness of our people and their way of doing business are significant parts of our value proposition. For Craggy Range, the people driving its pioneering spirit and pushing boundaries in the pursuit of excellence have been key to its success.
“I talk about our people and how important they are to what we do and that our wine is as much a reflection of us as people, as it is of our place. One of our most important statements is we like to see footprints in the vineyard because it means a person not a machine has been to tend the vines. People really enjoy hearing the personal connection.”
“I often describe New Zealand society being very egalitarian and explain that we were the first country in the world to give women the vote and the idea that who you are is what is important not what part of society you come from. Customers love it, and those who experience first-hand this sort of down to earth quality certainly endorse it," Smith says.
When Terry and Steve founded Craggy Range they weren’t looking to emulate the greatest examples of wine styles in the world. It was bolder than this; they were looking to create new benchmarks with wines that would become internationally known as New World classics.
“Our brand values are very much about a strong almost juxtaposition between tradition and innovation. It shows in everything you touch at Craggy Range. What people really love is the idea that we have been very ambitious and innovative in choosing the grape varieties and wine styles we wanted to make in areas that had no history of success".
“Innovation in our industry is around the land, what we plant and the wines we make. I talk to offshore customers about New Zealand being at the edge of the wine business, at the edge of the earth, where anything is possible. Where the innovation we’ve seen during the last 30 years has taken New Zealand from a country with no reputation for wine to one with a great reputation and in doing so has created the only truly new wine style in the world in the last 50 years, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc,” Smith says.