Méthode Actors: Vilaura's sparkling success story

Which is perhaps why Jascha Oldham-Selak sent a note across his analytical chemistry class in 2017, offering Sanne Witteveen fruit for a méthode traditionnelle. "Instead of giving her a bunch of flowers I gave her about a thousand bunches of grapes."

Eight years on, the duo have a "phenomenal" client base around the country, Hawke's Bay only tirage and disgorging service (with another facility to launch in Central Otago this year), a feted wine brand, and a mission to make New Zealand sparkling a quality match for Champagne. "New Zealand méthode traditionnele is destined to bed a wine style of significance," Jascha says.

A Focus on Fizz

Jascha was in the last year of his wine degree at EIT in Hawke's Bay, already laser-focussed on bottle fermented bubbles, when he met Sanne, who was completing her final two years, after a year of distance learning. He made his grand grape gesture a few weeks later, despite clocking the risk of creating competition in the sparkling category. "But I thought 'I need to share my contacts and passion and experience with someone else'." Sanne used the fruit to make a 2017 Methode Rosé, which won student wine of the year at the Hawke's Bay Wine Awards in 2018, following Jascha's win two years earlier with a 2015 Blanc de Blanc. "We're both on the trophy, which is special for us both to look back on," Jascha says.

He has spent more than 10 years "110%" focused on building knowledge, growing contacts, and strategising for top tier, Champagne-competitive New Zealand méthode traditionnelle. That's thanks to one of his first EIT lectures in 2014, when viticulturist Dr Richard Smart asked the students why New Zealand wasn't taking the style more seriously. There were only 30 in the class, all "green as anything", and Jascha felt like he was the only one who heard. "From that moment onwards that's all I thought about."

In his final year of study he processed a commercial harvest, with a tonne of fruit (minus Sanne's gifted bunches), a tiny press, and his first client. "Not everyone knows how to make méthode traditionnelle, so all I had to do was focus on it for a few years entirely and then I could continue my winemaking career as a consultant... our clientele kept on growing from that point on."

He went on to produce many more small-scale batches of méthode traditionnelle wines for other producers, as well as their own label, Vilaura. That began in 2019, was launched in late 2023, and won two of the three gold medals in the sparkling class at last year's National Wine Awards Aotearoa, where the 2020 Marlborough Blanc de Blanc won Champion Wine of the sparkling wine class and the trophy for Best Wine of Show. It was, said Chair of Judges Jane Cooper, "an outstanding example of classically made méthode traditionnelle; a clear and deserved winner."

Vilaura is "skin in the game" for Jascha and Sanne, "leading by example" with fruit judiciously handpicked then whole bunch pressed with minimal extraction, so that only the highest quality portion of the juice is used, with the "finest acidity and minerality that we are aiming for". The wine is bottle fermented and aged for a minimum of three years on yeast lees, says Jascha, who would like all New Zealand méthode to be aged a minimum of two years, to develop autolytic character, before being hand riddled and disgorged.

It’s a “slow game” that requires planning, patience and an understanding accountant, but once the first vintage is on shelves, producers can “ride the wave”, he adds. “Vilaura is doing well because we use time as an ingredient. That is giving us a significant advantage in the market.”

Methode Services

Vilaura is a flagbearer for what New Zealand méthode can be, but it’s only a small part of what Sanne and Jascha do, with the lion’s share of their time spent on consultation and winemaking facilities through their company Methode Services. That includes Hawke’s Bay’s only tirage and disgorging facility, established in 2023, and the new base they’re developing in Central Otago, to support current and new productions that would normally need to travel to Marlborough for secondary ferment and packaging.

In February Jascha and Sanne took their new tirage machine down to bottle for a handful of companies, and have found “phenomenal” support and encouragement from the industry, including major players like Gibbston Valley Winery, Maude and Amisfield, “to name a few”.

They’re not alone in urging more Central producers to add sparkle to their portfolio, with Wine Network Consulting, from Australia, running a sparkling wine workshop in the lead up to to the 2025 harvest. It’s a topical subject, “especially for a Pinot Noir growing region”, says Central Otago Winegrowers Association General Manager Carolyn Murray. Attendees were keen to learn more about the different methods of production and their pros and cons, as well as vineyard considerations, she says. “It definitely provided some food for thought.”

Sparkling wine requires grapes with higher acid and lower brix than still wines, meaning it’s the first cab off the rank at harvest. “If you’re a bubbles producer, life is a lot easier,” says Jascha, describing the risk mitigation (in the face of a looming tropical cyclone and fragile fruit, for example) of harvesting at 19 brix, early in the season, for a high-quality base wine.

Jascha is forecasting 300,000 bottles a year through the Central Otago service, to be based in Cromwell, but is “fully prepared” to upscale, with advantages in being a multiregional operator, able to adapt quickly. “We are preparing to be the national provider of méthode traditionnelle contract services.”

One unexpected development in Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago is the big demand for help in producing pétillant naturel, which is currently a third of the Methode Services business. Jascha says New Zealand examples have traditionally been “a bit experimental and hazy”, but producers like Rippon and Amisfield are giving them to Methode Services to disgorge, “for a cleaner, fresher, more marketable product”.

It’s a style that can tap into what he says is “huge growth” in the sparkling market, thanks in part to consumers choosing carbonated beverages, whether that’s an RTD, a spritzer or a méthode traditionnelle. In terms of Vilaura, “it is literally selling itself”, he says. “Trade are coming to us.”

The cost of Champagne is another factor in the buoyancy of the sparkling market, Jascha says. In 2022 he and Sanne travelled to Italy for four months then Épernay, France, for three. They worked with Grand Cru Champagne producers, with Sanne as an assistant winemaker and Jascha in the vineyard, finding the balance of brix, acids and flavour of the grapes and the influence of the chalky sub-soils.

They are devoted to the traditions of Champagne, but say the region’s product is now “fairly overpriced” in New Zealand for the relative quality, and there is growing concern about the impact of climate change.

That’s a great reason for New Zealand to measure up in terms of quality, Jascha says. “A huge part of what we do is advocating premiumisation; encouraging our clients to produce wines with the aim to compete with some of the best méthode traditionnelle examples of the world.”