Empowering young Pinot lovers
When Dan Sims launched Pinot Palooza in 2012, he was well aware of the narrative that young people were eschewing wine and the industry was on the verge of collapse.
At Pinot Noir New Zealand 2025, two leading experts in the field - United Kingdom-based plant biologist and author Dr Jamie Goode, and Hope Well farmer and no-till advocate Mimi Casteel - delivered compelling presentations on the weaknesses of monocultural farming, particularly in soil degradation.
Regenerative viticulture includes practices like cover cropping, composting, and no or minimal tillage, in order to enhance soil health, sequester carbon, reduce chemical inputs and boost biodiversity and resilience.
Speaking on day two of the conference - themed 'Caring for Our Place, Kaitiakitanga' - Jamie noted that 'sustainability' can be meaningless for consumers, and that organic practices, while beneficial, can have limitations in some viticultural systems, including heavy use of copper spraying to combat downy mildew in many European vineyards. Regenerative farming offers greater flexibility and practicality, "allowing people to do things the right way for their land", such as integrating trees or animals into vineyard ecosystems, or using the "very promising" technology of CRISPR, a precise gene-editing tool that can develop disease- and drought-resistant grapevines without introducing foreign DNA.
Jamie emphasised that local solutions are best. Reflecting on his pre-conference visits to North Canterbury and Central Otago, he highlighted promising regenerative initiatives such as permanent cover crops at Pyramid Valley, high-fruiting wires at Greystone (enabling year-round grazing), and subsurface mid-row irrigation at Felton Road (to enhance soil moisture). "There's been a lot of progress with organics and biodynamics that have helped soil health improve," he remarked. "The next stage in many vineyards is building on this by increasing biodiversity and reducing soil disturbance... there's a lot of shared learning to be done to identify local solutions."
The spirit of shared learning was a central theme in Mimi Casteel's thoughtful and personal talk. Having grown up at her parents' pioneering Oregon winery, Bethel Heights, Mimi combined her background in forest ecology, botany and systems biology to establish her own 80-acre farm nearby - her "vineyard and living laboratory". With neighbours initially telling her she was crazy, she said the soon-thriving vineyard began telling another story, drawing curiosity rather than scepticism. This "across-the-fences" approach is one Mimi argues is key to regenerative viticulture, which should be a network of interconnected systems rather than isolated efforts.
Mimi outlined the importance of soil's water-holding capacity in energy storage, buffering, and rainfall absorption, and introduced the concepts of holons (entities that function as both independent units and parts of a larger whole) and flow systems, such as root networks and rivers.
Given the accelerating impacts of climate change, Mimi stressed the urgency of collective action: "We don't have the luxury of this being a 'one farm' solution. We don't have time, but we do have agency."
