New Zealand - Wines to Pour or Wines to Bore?

January 25th,2010

Author: Kevin Ecock
Final Year: 1974
Biography: Kevin is a wine critic, consultant and runs his own wine school from Celbridge Co.Kildare. " I work wine, think wine, write and whine wine. I've been at this for 25 years now and thank god but the whine has all of it's enthusiasm intact. I look out into the wine world and report back to my fellow islanders. Then we drink wine and enjoy wine. The best juice often flows from the first pressing of the grapes. But it's the Free Run juice that gives the most exciting ideas and flavours."
URL: http://www.kevinecock.ie/

I went to the annual New Zealand Wine Fair in Dublin last week. This Fair traditionally 'kicks off' the tasting season. It's usually lively, fairly packed and great fun. This year it wasn't so packed. Is this a result of the recession or is it a sign that NZ has offered all it has to offer and the excitement has gone elsewhere? 

Over the years I've been a critic of the one horse wine trick NZ has foisted onto us. Sauvignon Blanc with a grassy edge - crisp, lively, mouth watering, ripe, herbaceous, fresh cut grass, warm tropical glasshouse aromas, clean, exciting, wine bars, young wine drinkers, fun, white wine. Many wine stores carried differing labels but similar wines in the bottles. Lot's of simple clean herbaceous fun. We were asked to pay above the odds for such simple pleasures. Up to last year we had no problem splashing out 12 to 15 hard earned spondooliks for this aperitif styled wine. We struggled to spend this amount on any other country of origin.

As a critic yearning to find something other than simple pleasures I went looking for other styles in NZ. Over the past few years wine makers in NZ have been making some fine wine that no-one has been too interested in buying! When I first tasted red wines from the Gimblett Gravels I reckoned NZ had come of age. (I went further and championed wines out of the Mills Reef winery up at Tauranga on the North Island - I see that last year the Preston family of Mills Reef picked up (once again) The Brigato Champion Cabernet Sauvignon for their Elspeth 2006 from Hawkes Bay.)

But, regardless of how brilliant these wines are, I'm still waiting. Sauvignon Blanc is still the only grape selling.

Last year almost 90% of all wine exports ex NZ was of Sauvignon Blanc with Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris the ONLY other varieties showing any increase in volume exported year on year! This is incredible. After all last year saw the greatest volume of wine available from NZ ever.

A few observations from last weeks Fair.:

Some fantastic wines OTHER than Sauvignon Blanc. I really do like some of their inexpensive Pinot Noir (c €14.00). Also, those brave enough to keep faith with Riesling should be rewarded and as for Frank Nobilo's 2004 Gisborne Vinoptima Gewurztraminer!!

A varied and truly interesting selection of Sauvignon Blanc styles. I can taste a lot of vineyard work now where I used to taste a lot of winery work! Herbal, mineral, tropical and reserved can now be added to my lexicon of New Zealand SB tasting terms. Most consumers won't like this change if its pushed out as a selling tool. It may seem strange but consumer taste profiles for most countries are a few years out of date! If this change in NZ is allowed to develop then I reckon consumer tastes will catch up allowing NZ to have a quality Sauvignon Blanc customer rather than the sheep it has nurtured for the past while.

A wine making nation promising us price increases following this years bonanza. I don't see this happening and so we will soon see brands positioning themselves to either be a quality offer or a price offer. If it's the latter it will be Sauvignon Blanc led (in a grassy, ripe style - and boring ) with some 'weak' other varietals in the brand portfolio: if it's the former then it will be defined Sauvignon Blanc showing cutting edge character - worth pouring. It will be accompanied by a portfolio of other varietals that will be hard to ignore.

An extraordinary, and I believe misplaced, belief in Pinot Gris. I don't see the aromatics or the potential of this grape in NZ. At best we will have a few wineries producing memorable wine. The rest will be victims to fashion. Wait until an America soap opera champions another grape variety!

I'm a fan. Bring on next years Fair already!
New Zealand worth pouring - no longer boring.