Drinking wine with the sun god

Yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to John Crone, a winemaker here in Matakana that Mike Smith at The Vintry told me was “kind of an odd bird.” When I asked him what he meant by that, he told me to just go out there and see for myself.

John and his wife Jill own Hyperion, the oldest winery in the district. To get to the winery, Mike explained, you go through the village, past the pottery and tileworks place, to the end of Tongue Farm Road. “Look for an old MG sticking out of a cow shed and you’ll know you’re there,” he said.

Sure enough, there was the MG, its tail end sticking out of an old shed and looking like it was blocked in by a clump of wild nasturtiums. Out in front of the house pushing an old mower through heavy, wet overgrown grass was a middle-aged woman who turned out to be Jill Crone. She told me John was in the milking shed. Evidently the winery at one time was a dairy farm (probably part of the old dairy co-op where they used to make Matakana Creamery Butter, “The Delight of the Table”) and John, being practical as, I’ve discovered, most Kiwis are, turned the old milking shed into a tasting room.

I parked my car on the just-cut grass. John, in a plaid red shirt and stained green khaki pants, was standing in front of the wide cellar door holding a couple bottles of wine. John, who is tall and lean, has the air of a retired university professor. He named the winery Hyperion, he told me, after the mythological sun god, one of the Titans, a race of giants descended from Gaia (the Earth) and Uranus (the Heavens). All of his wines are named after these gods (“I was going to name one of the wines Uranus but Jill didn’t think that was such a good idea,” he said, “but I may do it yet”).

We sat in the dark, cool milking shed, just the two of us, and John poured us both rather large tastings, beginning with his Chardonnay, named Helios (a later Sun God), followed by Eos Pinot Noir (goddess of the dawn), Zeus Merlot (son of Kronos), Gaia Merlot (Hyperion’s mother, the earth), and Kronos (god of agriculture), a blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Malbec. “This is our main wine,” said John as Jill passed in front of the milking shed still pushing the lawnmower. “It’s our big exporter. You’ll find this in some very nice restaurants in London. A classic Matakana. There’s a dusty, earthy profile to it and a slight hint of smoke. I’ve always wondered if that comes from when, hundreds of years ago, they burned off all the bush around here and maybe some how that ash was mixed in with the clay soil. Could be, could be.”

We finished off with a glass of Titan Cabernet Sauvignon, which John tasted slowly and with relish, as if for the first time. “That’s a lovely wine, isn’t it?”

It was. Bold, elegant with a delightful aroma of cassis. John took another sip. “Do you know what wine is?” he said, holding his glass up to catch the rays streaming in from the open door. I figured this was a rhetorical question so I held my tongue. “Wine is sunlight held together by water.” I nodded. “Galileo said that,” he told me. He stood up, grabbed our glasses, and put them in an old stained sink. “I think I’ll go take a nap,” he said. And he was off.