Dominique Auroy proves doubters wrong


Seeing is believing. So is tasting. These tests will convince a visitor to Rangiroa atoll, in the heart of the Tuamotu archipelago of French Polynesia, that what is to be found there is reality.

In the winegrowing regions of Europe, New Zealand, Australia and California, they'd say you were pulling their leg.

The soil? The climate? The heat? The location? Grape vines are supposed to need cold snaps between warm ones in between passing through the four seasons. A warm tropical atoll where the climate sits at a steady 30ºC or so?

Eleven years and US$5 million later, French Polynesian businessman Dominique Auroy is proving the doubters to be utterly wrong and they are not turning their noses up at his rose.

In August, bottles of red, rose and dry and sweet wines from his vineyard at Rangiroa atoll went on sale in Paris for around US$40 a bottle. By the end of the year, he'll be hitting the market in California and after that, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

French Polynesia has annual wine imports of around 4 million bottles. Back in the early 1990s Auroy asked: “Do we need to import all that? Couldn't we grow...?” All the sceptics screamed “C'est impossible!”

Auroy encountered Bernard Hudelot, a grower in the famous French wine growing province of Burgandy. He became inspired to import 40 varieties of vines from France.

After three years of experiments in the Marquesas, the Australs, Tahiti, Moorea and the Tuamoto islands, he chose the great atoll of Rangiroa to perfect the art of what he had been assured was the impossible. Other locations had plant disease problems.

The magic he employed was to trick vines planted in Rangiroa's thin, poor coral soil into believing they had been planted in the rich soils of France's s classic wintery wine growing districts. To do that he had to use growth cycles hitherto only achieved in French laboratories.

After three years, he could exclaim the French equivalent of: “By Jove, I've got it.” In 2002, he produced the first harvest of 5900 bottles. He's hoping for 21,000 this year.

The vineyard on one of Rangiroa's small motus (islets) has had its soil improved with local compost. Each vine is droplet irrigated with water pumped from a 13,200-gallon tank with solar-powered pumps. Mineral fertilisers is added through the irrigation system as needed. A high level of limestone content requires the addition of iron chelates to avoid ferric chlorosis.

Rangiroa's salty atmosphere protects the vineyard from infection by spore-born diseases from other plant species.

The 20-hectare vineyard employs a dozen Rangiroans. Auroy intends to increase production by encouraging Rangiroa families to establish their own vineyards.

Auroy's wines are produced as reds and whites that taste like no other. “They have a different structure to those we find in metropolitan France. The most noticeable flavour is of a Tahitian fern.”

They also have a taste of red fruit and a slight pong of chocolate. What, no coconut?