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New Zealand sauvignon blanc gets a makeover: the best bottles to buy now
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It’s not easy being a child star, reared in a warm bath of adulation, then expected to make the difficult transition to adulthood and, later, midlife as the world looks critically on. This has been the case with Marlborough sauvignon blanc.
The wine that became such a hit is showy and attention-seeking. It catches you on the nose from the moment it’s poured into the glass – all pungent zing, bold gooseberry and citrus. Such instant appeal brought it international popularity, but with this came the contempt of wine snobs and the vitriol of winemakers elsewhere who resented its easy success.
More recently, I’ve noticed early-adopting ordinary drinkers getting in on the “Oh, not New Zealand sauvignon blanc” act, too, so it wasn’t a surprise to go to a sauvignon blanc event in Blenheim, Marlborough, earlier this year and find a slight air of “please, love us more” around the place. Or, as one of the speakers, American writer Matt Kramer, put it, “my impression is that there’s a midlife crisis here”.
Four decades on from the planting of the first commercial vines, the region that invented a modern classic is still a spectacular success story, with 77 per cent of all the wine in New Zealand produced there. Most of that is sauvignon blanc. “There has never been as much competition for grapes as there is now. Prices for fruit will go up again this year,” says winemaker Brian Bicknell of Mahi Wines. But look at what’s happening to those grapes and you find a region with a split personality. One half is getting richer, churning out hits like a youthful boy band, while the other has jacked in its City career, discovered ultra-running and taken a pay cut to do something it really believes in.
I still like the “boy band” wines. Not all of them: an awful lot of the cheapies taste of raw potatoes mixed with gooseberry yogurt and three-days-cut-into-lemons. Or they’re all busty and lascivious up front, then fall away to nothing and taste a bit soapy on the finish. The best, though, are glorious. Try pouring a cold glassful straight from the fridge at the end of a long day. The vivid grassy, white peach and passion-fruit scent has the reviving power of a lime and peach daiquiri.
The other side of Marlborough sauvignon blanc is more classical and, in theory, ought to appeal even to the sauvignon naysayers. It includes the boutique sauvignon blancs made with wild yeast and/or oak, such as Kevin Judd’s wonderful Greywacke or Dog Point Section 94. And also all those wines that are more expensively made, using grapes of a higher quality, that still have Marlborough’s heady lift and lucidity, but they are more restrained to the point where they make some Marlborough sauvignon look almost vicious. As the chemist-turned-winemaker Andrew Hedley at Framingham said to me as I tasted his gorgeous 2015: “It’s no use looking for those neck-breaking aromatics.” Then he smiled: “Snap!”
As well as hunting for the lower-key fragrances in the wines, Hedley ferments a small proportion – 10 per cent – of his sauvignon blanc in barrel to give it extra layers and texture, a practice now common among those striving for higher quality. For example, they do it at Cloudy Bay, the producer that first elevated Marlborough sauvignon blanc to the status of a fashion must-have with its cleverly managed allocation system.
The danger is, as Marlborough navigates its midlife crisis, that the wines still pursuing the “child star” dream make it harder for some of the more serious sauvignon blancs to survive. Partly, drinkers don’t always realise they exist. Also, sauvignon blanc doesn’t have the price elasticity of, say, pinot noir, and drinkers have been trained by supermarket cheapies into thinking they are being ripped off if a Marlborough sauvignon blanc costs more than £10.
“This can be a difficult industry for smaller players,” says Bicknell, who buys grapes from other growers to make his wines. While he pays a premium for better quality, he never expected to see the big corporations increasing prices to this level. For those winemakers who make wine from grapes they buy, it can be hard to persuade growers to take the risk of aiming for a more time-consumingly managed, low-yielding, higher-quality crop – because it’s more of a risk. Marlborough is a child star that has matured. Of course, the wines are delicious, too. “Around flowering time, you can smell the sauvignon,” says Bicknell. “The blossomy, lemony characteristic.” Now someone pour me a drink.