When a name is not enough: Marlborough’s Identity Crisis
by Therese Herzog 
Because one of our most cherished wines, our lovingly crafted Montepulciano, hails from its native Abruzzo, an article recently caught my eye: “Abruzzo Weathers the Storm: Being a winemaker in Abruzzo these days is a challenge.”
Once revered for soulful Montepulciano, Abruzzo's name became muddied by mass production - grapes bought on the cheap, trucked across regions, vinified elsewhere, and bottled under the same geographic identity. The result? Supermarket shelves brimming with forgettable, industrial wines that bear no resemblance to their noble origins. Meanwhile, true artisans toil to be seen and valued.
It struck a nerve - because we live this, too. Right here in Marlborough.
Like Abruzzo, Marlborough has fallen victim to its own global fame. The region’s name, once a promise of distinctive quality, now adorns labels of wines with no connection to the land, the people, or the craft behind them. Trucked-in grapes, industrial processing, bulk wine bottled at scale - and still, the name Marlborough shines on the label.
And worse: wines exported in bladders, shipped across oceans, then bottled in foreign factories, far from vineyard or vigneron. Yet they stand on the same retail shelf, under the same Marlborough name, as wines raised and bottled on the land they come from.
These wines are priced to shift units, not to stir the soul. And in doing so, they drown out the voices of vignerons who live and breathe their vineyards - those of us who guide every vine and barrel by hand, not spreadsheet. Yet, in the market’s eyes, we all wear the same name.
Take the term “single vineyard.” It sounds romantic. But more often than not, it’s just marketing spin. Many so-called single vineyard wines are made from purchased fruit, farmed by someone else, processed by technicians far from the source. It’s geographic name-dropping, nothing more.
Real provenance? Real integrity? That comes only when the wine is grown, vinified, and bottled by the same hands, in the same place. That is estate. That is authenticity.
Marlborough doesn't have to go the way of Abruzzo. But it will - unless thoughtful drinkers start asking tougher questions.
Who made this wine? Who grew these grapes? Where was it bottled?
Curious to taste Marlborough through the lens of true craftsmanship?
Cheers, Therese