At Pinot Noir New Zealand 2025, Steve moderated a panel named "Caring for our place, Kaitiakitanga – Kiwi stories and case studies" which sparked much-needed discussions about moving beyond sustainability to truly regenerative practices.
Below is a transcript of his panel introduction that asks us – as wine industry professionals, growers, makers and sellers – to consider what we can do to design businesses that rejuvenate our environment and sustain our communities. What does a vision of New Zealand Pinot Noir as "a Direct Path to the Wonders of Nature" look like?
Sustainability is such a vex subject, how the hell can we be happy with being sustainable when our world is burning, environmentally, socially, financially and politically. There are many things we can't control but we can design and run our businesses in a way that rejuvenates our environment, respects and invigorates our people and communities and sustains the business as a whole. In New Zealand we have taken great pride in our sustainability platform, but I question, is it really that good when it's just about sustainability?
Eric Asimov has made many profound statements on wine with his beautiful prose. Yesterday he made one in person here on this stage that was sort of a precis from an article he wrote in July 2020 titled ‘From Good Wine, a Direct Path to the Wonders of Nature’. I quote, “As a New Yorker who has spent most of my life in Manhattan, wine has provided me with a connection to nature that I most likely would never have experienced otherwise.” If we don't understand our responsibility to nature after that quote, we need to reconsider what we do.
Imagine if this was the title of the article Eric wrote say in 2028: “New Zealand Pinot Noir – a Direct Path to the Wonders of Nature.” We need a bit of Sir Ed Hillary and Ernest Rutherford and at least take a look at the opportunity because I can't see any other country in the world that could grab that headline but Aotearoa New Zealand.
In the quoted words of Nigel Greening in Wine Searcher in January, “People say it won't make any difference, but if everyone says that, we're fucked. You have to step up and be counted.”
Fine New Zealand Pinot Noir deserves a new way of business that regenerates and preserves and wine communities to be resilient to what nature and the world has in store for us and provide a strong platform for the business of fine New Zealand Pinot Noir to thrive. The irony is, that we as humans have caused this, yet we are the only ones that can save ourselves from ourselves.
Darwin proposed that the most adaptable will survive and thrive so where is our adaptation?
That is what this panel is about.
Steve Smith MW
Founder and Estate Director
Pyramid Valley, Smith & Sheth, Lowburn Ferry
Aotearoa New Zealand Fine Wine Estates.
One of the panel's most compelling voices was Nigel Greening from Felton Road, whose presentation was recently published on Jamie Goode's wine blog and is also shared here.