Regenerative agriculture aims to restore and maintain natural systems, like water and carbon cycles, to enable land to continue to produce food in a manner that is healthier for people and the long-term health of the planet and its climate.  It is a response to recognizing negative effects of conventional agriculture, particularly soil erosion, diversity loss, and contribution to climate change.

The main contrast with organic or biodynamic agriculture is that these are input driven, reliant on sets of rules, whereas regenerative agriculture is output driven, aimed at producing highly nutritional food, free from biocides.  These systems all appreciate the social aspects of farming:  most farmers live on their farms, and base their friendships within farm communities. Their shared interests in organic, biodynamic or regenerative farming become important parts of their lives.

Organic/biodynamic agriculture is defined by listing individual types of products, e.g., particular fertilisers, pest and disease control products, etc., that may, or may not, be used. Biodynamics also recognizes phases of the moon and planets. Regenerative agriculture, by contrast, has a set of objectives that it wishes to achieve, including soil health, especially microbial health; building soil organic matter for soil health and climate change mitigation and adaptation; and a suit of on-farm practices, including no-till, cover crops, minimising soluble fertiliser use, avoiding agrichemicals, integration of livestock, etc., that are used to try and achieve the various objectives. It is therefore considered an 'outcome focused' approach, in contrast to the input focused approach of organic agriculture. For example, organic/biodynamic practices completely exclude the use of glyphosate, whereas regenerative agriculture might accept a role in no-till planting.  One of the new things about regenerative agriculture is a focus on multi-species cover crops. The cover crop mixes in regenerative agriculture are not just 2- or 3- or even 5-way mixes, they range from 10 to 60 or more species. Proponents of regenerative agriculture claim that these cover crop mixes stimulate the soil microbial population to supply plants with the nutrients they need, reducing or eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizers.

In New Zealand, multiple official bodies (Landcare research, Ministry of the Environment, Statistics New Zealand, Ministry for Primary Industries) and others, warn that soil erosion, due to unsustainable farming practices, reduces agricultural productivity and is leading to sedimentation in waterways. Climate change exacerbates these effects, with increased risk of extreme weather events and the spread of invasive species. They state that sustainable land management is critical to mitigate land degradation. This includes tree planting, protecting erosion-prone land, managing water runoff and protecting wetlands and native ecosystems.

Soil is a biological construct, powdered rock inhabited by thousands of species of viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, enchytraeids, collembolas, mites, earthworms, insects and some vertebrates. Soil formation is an ongoing process and its interface with agriculture may be degradative, not necessarily progressive. It has a major role in above-ground biodiversity, control of plant, animal and human pests and diseases, and climate regulation. 

At Māori Point, we endeavour to promote soil formation and soil health. We recognize that soil is more than the substrate for growing our vines. It has a vital role in preventing climate change: there is more organic matter in soils than in all tropical forests combined; and the top one metre of soils globally contains 3 times as much carbon as the atmosphere. Generating new healthy soil helps combat global warming, perhaps as much or more than planting trees.  We are in the slightly unusual situation of orchestrating the development of new soil from powdered glacial rocks, rather than recovering from degradation. At present, our soil is based on recent glacial outwash: sands, pebbles, rocks and boulders with surface layers of finely powdered glacial rock (wind-blown loess); with very low organic content. Natural soils develop slowly over geological time, and by understanding this natural process we can intervene and accelerate their formation. Soil organic matter comes mainly from biological fixation of carbon and nitrogen from the air. To do this, soil micro-organisms require phosphate, calcium, magnesium, a range of trace elements, and, of course, water and oxygen. After planting our vines in what looked like fine pale sand, it took only a few years for surface soil to become rich and black.

How was this transformation achieved? Our organic matter is the product both of soil microorganisms and of plants growing in the inter-rows, mulched and thrown back under the vines. Products of the vines are recycled back to the land. Wine is bottled and sold, but grape pressings and prunings are composted and replaced back in the vineyard. Geological formation of soil occurs with the slow generation of phosphate and minerals by microbiological digestion of powdered rock. We short-circuit this process by importing powdered phosphate rock and crushed dolomite, spreading these on the soil each winter. They are slowly incorporated into our soil, and our busy soil fungi and bacteria grow on each particle and progressively release phosphate, magnesium and calcium, making these available to the vines and inter-row plants. Industrial agriculture would employ purified chemicals, giving transient encouragement of plant growth and then being washed into the subsoil and polluting sub-surface water. Mycorrhyzal fungi bridge solid particles of phosphate and dolomitic rock with vine roots, transferring nutrients with minimal loss. We consider that our system is both economically and ecologically more efficient than an industrial chemical approach.

Terroir, and its expression from individual vineyards, is a topic that arouses a passionate response from almost every winegrower. Do soils really matter, or is vine water supply the only important difference underlying seasonal or regional variation? James Wilson, in his classic “Terroir, the role of geology, climate and culture in the making of French wines” favours geology, as do the owners of the 2,816 specific climats in Burgundy, each of whom, when you meet them, is eager to spend a couple of hours detailing the structures of their soil and sub-soil. 

Stephen Imre as part of his PhD thesis at the University of Auckland studied 3 closely adjacent sites at Bannockburn in Central Otago, on Mt Difficulty, Olssens, and Felton Road, all growing ungrafted 10/5 Pinot Noir on three distinctly different soils. Microvinification, sensory analysis and some detailed chemical analyses were used to compare the wines. Soils at each site were analyzed in great detail: they ranged from sandy-silty loam with some clay at Felton Road, a thin layer of soil over schist gravels at Mt Difficulty, to fluvial gravels at Olssens. Wines from each site were distinctly different, with different profiles of aroma compounds, tannins, and polyphenols, and differences in colour. The authors conclude that as these compounds are grape-derived, it is likely that they reflect differences in the soil component of terroir.  

Certainly, at Māori Point, we believe that the distinctive flavours of our wines reflect the efforts we have made to develop soils rich in organic matter, with a good balance of trace elements and micronutrients. We also note the different characteristics of wines from different sub-regions of our vineyard, perhaps due to interaction of different varieties of mycorrhizae specific to different vine rootstocks. However, there is also a strong argument that the microbes that make wine – the yeasts and bacteria that ferment the grapes and also (more subtly) create flavours and textures in wine – may play a dominant role in shaping the character and quality of wine. This is especially true when the yeasts and bacteria are allowed to be the wild populations, which is our practice at Māori Point. Not only will our vineyard and its microbes create a unique combination, distinct from neighbouring vineyards, our local population of wild yeasts will also vary somewhat each year in response to warmth, rain and wind, thus giving distinct flavouring to each vintage. Read more along these lines in Terroir: myth or reality?