‘Utterly inexplicable’: Winemaker admits smuggling vine cutting in suitcase into NZ

by Tracy Neal, Open Justice 

A prominent New Zealand winegrower who established vines from an Australian cutting he hid in his luggage and smuggled into the country has been described as a “misguided romantic” whose fall from grace has been significant.  

The actions of winemaker and vineyard owner James Millton, who in 2012 was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the New Zealand wine industry, were described by a judge yesterday as “utterly inexplicable” and “unfathomable”. 

Millton, an internationally renowned organic wine grower, was sentenced in the Blenheim District Court to five months of community detention and fined $15,000 on charges linked to him knowingly importing goods with no biosecurity clearance and knowingly making a false or misleading declaration to officials at Auckland International Airport. 

The Ministry for Primary Industries charged Millton after a Blenheim nursery raised concerns over the provenance of cuttings he wanted grafted, which turned out to be from the illegal vines already established in Gisborne. 

He later admitted illegally importing the grapevine cuttings in his suitcase, failing to declare them, and later planting them in his garden and vineyard. 

Millton’s actions risked introducing a suite of pests and diseases that had the potential to cripple the New Zealand wine industry, which is also one of the country’s major export industries, MPI said. 

They could also have a significant impact on the wider New Zealand horticultural industry. 

A statement to the court by the NZ Wine Growers Association outlined in stark terms what the industry feared as a result of biosecurity breaches, and that such actions put the whole industry, including 42,000 hectares of grape plantings, at risk. 

Millton’s lawyer Peter Radich said while a risk was present, it was not in the league described. 

“What we are talking about is two grape prunings of an inert kind — they are not like fertilised eggs,” Radich said. 

During a trip to South Australia in 2019, Millton took the two cuttings from a Savagnin grapevine from his daughter’s vineyard in the Adelaide Hills — a vineyard he knew to be healthy and disease-free. 

Millton was interested in the variety as it was not present in New Zealand and he wanted to cultivate it at his vineyard in Gisborne, and then later in Marlborough. 

Radich said Millton was a “dreamer”, and an enthusiast who was on a “sensory expedition of his own”, but at age 67 his personal life had collapsed, he had suffered a massive life setback from losing his business, part of his family and now the reputational damage associated with the offending. 

Radich said despite MPI’s submission that Millton showed no remorse and even downplayed the offending, he was a man who now “self-flagellated” and was sorry for himself and for what he had done. 

Whether or not he had commercial intentions, as alleged by MPI but refuted by the defence, was inconclusive, leading Judge Garry Barkle to render the argument irrelevant. 

Millton  placed the cuttings in his suitcase, and on June 14, 2019, flew from Adelaide to Auckland. 

On the way he completed the passenger arrival card declaration, and indicated that he was not bringing in any plants or plant product.

Millton handed over his falsely completed arrival declaration upon arrival and did not declare the grapevine cuttings when he went through biosecurity and customs at Auckland International Airport. 

He took the cuttings to Gisborne, where he lived, and in 2020 planted them near his home at the vineyard. 

He treated the cuttings with lime sulphate solution, which MPI said was not an approved treatment for pathogens.  

Judge Barkle said this showed he was not indifferent to the risk involved, even though it was not an approved treatment protocol. 

Cuttings were later taken from these plants and grown in the vineyard. 

In 2021 he took cuttings to a local nursery for grafting and falsely said they were “Chenin Blanc” grapevine cuttings. The nursery grafted 134 cuttings and returned them to Millton who then planted them in the Millton vineyard. 

Millton moved to Blenheim in 2022 but remained a shareholder in the Millton Vineyard business he and his former wife set up in 1984. 

In 2023 he arranged for cuttings he called “Chenin Blanc Special Selection” to be sent to him in Blenheim. 

He contacted a nursery in Blenheim and asked it to graft the cuttings, but after inquiring about the cuttings’ provenance, the nursery declined to graft them and MPI was alerted.