New Zealand is famous for its sauvignon blancs. Now it’s wowing the world with pinot noirs
(Illustration: Brian Rea)
You can’t help but admire New Zealand’s vintners. In the span of a generation, the country went from having a marginal wine industry to being a top producer. In 1975, a tin hut winery called Matua Valley entered N.Z.’s first sauvignon blanc into a competition in Auckland. The intense blend of green and tropical flavours caught the attention of local growers, who soon transformed Marlborough’s sheep pastures into vineyards. By the early ’90s, sauv blanc had become the focus of an industry and government plan to export clean, green and “expensive-but-worth-it” wine—a script Ontario, a similarly small, cool-climate market, would be wise to copy. It’s been an enormous commercial success.
As global markets expand, Kiwi-style sauvignons are showing up in France, Chile, South Africa and Canada, but N.Z. vintners aren’t panicking. They continue to hone sauvignon blanc, developing smaller sub-regions—like the Awatere Valley of Marlborough—to create more nuanced wine, and they’ve begun to diversify. Cool-climate pinot noir has become its red messiah, with such regions as Central Otago, Martinborough and Marlborough achieving global success. In fact, British wine writer Matthew Jukes was so inspired he created an unofficial five-tier ranking system for N.Z. pinots, as they use in France—a bit gimmicky, perhaps, but it underscores the excitement the pinots are generating. There are also excellent chardonnays and Bordeaux-style reds from the warmer North Island. Other varieties on the cusp include syrah, pinotage and riesling. Here are some excellent (90 point plus) wines, along with some less expensive picks.
Great articule, but the New Zealand bird has only two legs, which are situated side by side, not one in front of each other.Regards – Ian from Kiwiwines2U
May 27, 2010 at 7:21 pm | by Ian CadwalladerIan, noooooooo. The illustration shows two legs side-by-side. The head and upper body are turned a bit and that gives the illusion to some that the legs are one-in-front-of-the-other.
Please let me know how to contact you so you can send some “Kiwiwines2ME!
February 3, 2011 at 11:04 am | by gerald miller