NZW Fellows: Nick Hoskins

But that foray into nursery production, botanic gardens, and sports field maintenance proved fortuitous for New Zealand’s wine industry, launching a career that would influence the outcomes of Wairarapa’s developing industry, the country’s Pinot Noir clones, the genetics and health of grapevines, and the smooth transition of wine research into the field, including his leadership of the seven-year Vineyard Ecosystem Programme.

“Nick truly is an industry taonga,” says Riversun Nursery founder Geoff Thorpe of the New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) 2024 Fellow.

A Pinot Pioneer

Fifty years after he took up his apprenticeship in horticulture and gardening, Nick says he wasn’t a great scholar in terms of biology or plants, but enjoyed the outdoor work and learned a lot along the way. He moved to Martinborough with his wife and young daughter in 1980, working on the farm and gardens of a big homestead. But as grapes were planted nearby, Nick’s horticultural skills were increasingly in demand, starting with work on Wyatt Creech’s vineyard. “There was no one with much skill in terms of plants and he asked if I would help him out, so I started working for him and we made a nursery to grow rooted cuttings.”

Nick went on to work with Larry McKenna at Martinborough Vineyards. “I didn’t know anything about training grapevines. It was a little bit of ‘do stuff and see what happened’.” There was plenty of excitement about developments in the region, but far less experience, he says. “We were in the same boat as a lot of others planting vineyards at the time.”

Nick worked with Larry for 12 years, growing knowledge in the vineyard, and getting a taste of work in the winery at vintage, on the bottling line, and in selling wine at the cellar door. “It was the whole gambit, from start to finish.” They also had a wine tasting group, “which was a bit of an eye opener for me,” he says. “It was a lot of fun.”

Support from viticulturist Richard Smart and other wine researchers grew Nick’s appreciation for wine science, fuelled by myriad trials at Martinborough Vineyards. “Larry had a bit of fascination with science as well and we were always trialling things in the vineyard and winery that would give us points on the Pinot board. We were always looking at different ways of doing things.” His influence on the industry from those nascent days will see Nick recognised at the Wairarapa Wine Region Pinot Pioneers dinner in early August, alongside Richard Riddiford, founder of Palliser Estate.

Grapevine Improvement

While at Martinborough Vineyards Nick was involved with the Wairarapa Grapevine Improvement Group, and was its Chair when he met Geoff Thorpe at one of the national meetings. The grapevine grafting aspect of Riversun was growing steadily and Geoff had become frustrated by the lack of progress on a draft certification scheme to ensure vines were true to type and not carrying virus. Throughout “quite tense and contentious national meetings”, Nick stood out as a voice of “calm, clear, unemotive reason”, Geoff says. “He would sit back and listen to all the different viewpoints and once it was clear we had reached an impasse, he would speak quietly and table his thinking. And everyone would think about it for a minute or two and then go ‘yeah, great solution Nick’.”

Demand for vines exploded in 1998 and Geoff asked Nick to become Riversun’s client liaison. “I needed to focus on growing volumes, developing and incorporating quality standards into our own business, and we needed someone to support clients with site selection, what rootstock, variety, clone to order, how to prepare the land and plant, and look after their vines.” Nick, who had been at Martinborough Vineyards for 12 years by then, knew the role would take him further into the areas of genetics and vine health he was increasingly interested in. Geoff and he “share the passion for getting those things right”, he says. “Vine health is kind of a broad concept, but it starts at the nursery, so we have to make sure we’re getting the right plant material and it is what they say it is.”

After a year working remotely, Nick moved to Gisborne to be more closely connected with operations, and found himself liaising with Dr Rod Bonfiglioli, who became the Technical Director when Riversun launched its Vine Certification programme in 1999. The scientist, with his focus on vine material health and diversity, was a great influence, Nick says. “I could offer him the practicality of what I knew and he could offer the science of what he knew.”

Research to the field

After three years in Gisborne, Nick returned to Martinborough, and in 2005 started Vine Managers Wairarapa Ltd, providing management for more than 150 hectares of vineyards. Then in 2009 Rod asked him to take over the three-year NZW Virus Elimination Project, which had just been launched in Martinborough and Hawke’s Bay. Nick thought the multimillion-dollar programme was beyond his skills, but Rod, who was terminally ill, was insistent. “He didn’t want it to turn into a science-fest,” Nick explains. “He wanted it to be a very practical project, which is what it ended up being.” Nick worked with science advisors and Rod’s widow Ruby, a skilled technical writer who delivered comms around the project. He loved the opportunity to ensure the science was practical for growers. “It’s really about trying to drive those outcomes. And you have to start with industry outcomes in mind, in my view.” Scientists are not necessarily good at that, he adds, “but I have learned that they really value the input from other people, particularly people who are working in the field.”

The Virus Elimination project, which extended into a second period from 2012 to 2015, changed Nick’s career path. He went on to become the manager of NZW’s multifaceted Vineyard Ecosystems project, overseeing work being done by Plant & Food Research, Auckland University, and Linnaeus laboratory, along with other contracted research organisations.

On the conclusion of that programme in 2022, Nick wound up Vine Managers, and supported Riversun with inhouse research and development, along with client liaison, while helping develop BioScout, an agritech startup offering infield spore detection via cutting edge technology and artificial intelligence. He’s the perfect man to take that advancement into the field, concludes Geoff. “If anyone has the credibility with growers and wine companies to adopt such leading-edge technology, it has to be Nick Hoskins.”