Veteran Moutere winemaker shows how it was done

Before the grape winemakers moved in around the 1970s, the Nelson region was home to a myriad of successful apple-wine and cider makers.

Big player wineries included Templemore, Bryces, Roils, Gardeners, Rochdale Cider, Robinsons and Peter Tait. Later players like Noslen and Semaines also made their mark, as did some of the smallest ones like Earles, Hills and Wadsworths.

And then there was Laska Cellars, up Hills Road just beyond Upper Moutere. Randal McMurtrey started it 50 years ago, running it for 23 years as a rural wine bar and eatery which over the years solicited a loyal clientele of locals, tobacco workers, fruit pickers and travellers.

I meet up with Randal and partner Jo Crawford at their winery exactly 50 years to the day from when Randal put down his first two barrels of apple wine at Laska Cellars over that Easter weekend in 1973.

We sit around a table in their still-working winery, which I have to say is looking more like a winemaking museum these days. We sample the latest vintages; the first a crisply dry and delicious apple wine, followed by a deep rich-red boysenberry wine, smooth and easy to drink, both fine wines comparable to any grape table wine.

No way has this man lost his touch. And not that surprising, winemaking is in his blood. His grandparents, Laurie and Mollie McMurtry, owned Templemore on Salisbury Road, a 20-hectare orchard and cow farm where they established a winery in the barn behind their house, running it to Laurie’s death in 1954.

Randal was raised in Monaco, his family moving when he was four to a farm up Moutere Valley along Old House Road.

Coming up 75 now, Randal is still sharp, quick-witted and wryly articulate, his years of journalism sticking up for the environment making sure of that.

He recalls setting up Laska Cellars.

“Our strategy was simple. Provide a leafy landscape with plenty of shade, barbeques, solid tables and umbrellas. Buy and cook your own rib-eye or sirloin steak on the hot-plate, a big salad bar, and washing it all down with fruity wines produced on the property. All at affordable prices too. How could we go wrong?”

Laska translates from Eastern European as Love and Goodwill, given by his ex-Czech partner at the time. Bands, functions, evening sessions evolving into parties. “Too many late nights drinking too much,” he admits.

Without a doubt, Laska gained a reputation as a good time party place. One licensing inspector famously described it as “the last of the wild west” after seeing locals there staggering around with bentwood chairs on their heads, pretending they had sprouted antlers.

Constable Bailey from Motueka would turn up every so often to check Laska’s function licences, not to mention count the new car wrecks along sweeping gravel stretches of Central Road, the only way up here unless you took the ford at the end of the road.

One guy took out six fence posts in a row – “heavy Holdens, don’t stop easily”, he mumbled over a beer afterwards.

With the years came new wines, some highly memorable. In the 60s, Bill Semaine developed a fortified wine he called Old Moutere which Redwood Cellars ended up buying the recipe and label for. Old Mout became popular with seasonal workers, Randal developing a similar product called Park Bench, while one winemaker up north called his Purple Death.

Ultimate validation for Randal came on a plane back from Palmerston North one day, the young man next to him, finding out Randall was a winemaker, commented: “Nelson has the best wines. Old Mout and Park Bench. Both can put your lights out.”

A group of larrikins loosely referred to by locals as the “ranch people” defined themselves by always being on the scrounge for credit or cheap wine. Tall Neil was one of them, so one day Randal said if he wanted any more credit, he’d have to leave his spare tyre.

Word spread and soon there was a small mountain of spare tyres outside Laska’s winery. On payday, the rogues amongst them would come back and grab the tyre with the best tread.

A Canadian couple drinking some kiwifruit wine at Laska witnessed Tall Neil nonchalantly rolling his spare up to the bar to get a drink. The tourists proclaimed that in all their world travels they’d never seen anything like it, making Tall Neil re-enact it so they could get a better photo.

Days between Christmas and New Years always had Randal chasing his tail, including delivering many mail orders down to the Kaiteriteri Beach Motor Camp. “Reg, cut it out, you haven’t put up the tent yet,” grumbled one wife to his partner ripping open the newly arrived box.

Everything changed around 1987, after the share market crash. The big bus tours thinned out, tobacco farming was disestablished, and fruit pickers had little choice but to go on contracts which had the effect of pulling them more into line. An epic era was over.

Facing more and more bureaucratic hurdles to maintain his licence, including a long-protracted court battle with the Tasman District Council, Randal decided to leave the wine industry in 1996.

He threw his energy into journalism, specialising in denouncing what he saw as environmental vandalism. “Manapouri, native logging, destruction of beech forests, Chatham Island peat going to Japan. Later I called out native logging in the Catlins and Southland. Certainly got up a few noses there.”

On the side he continued to pick a few apples but generally gave himself a much easier life. The decision to exit the business world was not regretted, even if it didn’t last long.

Two years before his pension was due to kick in, Randall and Jo decided to go into producing cider vinegar, along with planting a block of heritage apple trees. The latter proved not what they were cracked up to be, they don’t even pick them anymore. “Lucky we planted a block of modern ones as well,” he says.

Converting some of the winery to vinegar production could have proved unbelievably expensive. “New European-built vinegar generators are an eye watering price, as were the easy-clean heat exchanges we needed.”

They ended up building two 1000 litre vinegar generators in their workshop, along with an easy-to-clean $15,000-equivalent heat exchanger for under $1,000. Compared to wine, vinegar is tricky to make and stabilise.

“It will get up to all sorts of tricks if not carefully produced and monitored,” he says.

If they thought regulations were arduous for winemaking, vinegar proved far worse. After making some 20 barrels of vinegar they ended up deciding not to sell it. “Consequently we have lots of vinegar ageing nicely,” Jo says.

Laska’s rambling 350 square metre factory on the 72-hectare property runs out over three levels all under one roof. At the top is the press room. Laska has three presses, its show-stealer being a Victorian cast iron hunker capable of producing 2,500 litres of juice per day with two operators. Still reliable, albeit a bit noisy.

From here it’s down to tank room and vinegar generators, laboratory, office, boiler room and barrel hall. On the lowest level, there’s the bottling hall and former off licence area which is now the cider museum. Capacity for the tank room is a relatively small 10,000 litres, the vinegar room a 3,500 litre capacity with 20 oak casks full.

One of Randal’s three sons makes the apple wine and cider at Laska these days, still in the traditional way.

“New Zealand has no cider laws at all,” Randal says. “And various New Zealand cider companies take gleeful advantage of it with as little as 30% apple juice in some of New Zealand’s lolly water ciders. Lolly water is popular here, but it’s not cider.

“At Laska, we’ve never put any sugar in our cider, and just a small amount of cane sugar in the apple wine. There’s no amelioration in our vinegars either, it’s about producing a range of fine beverages that you won’t find on liquor shop shelves any more, certainly not supermarket ones.”

The old days have gone, but Laska Cellars still does it the traditional way.