18 Feb 2009 -
Wall Street Journal Sauvignon Blanc Article
A Burst of Spring From Every Bottle
It's easy to fast forward through winter with the clean, true taste of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
By DOROTHY J. GAITER AND JOHN BRECHER
Aren't you just sick of winter? For less than $20, you can bring spring into your home -- or at least into your heart -- today. It's as easy as unscrewing the top of a bottle of wine.
Enliven Winter with a Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc
For less than $20 you can brighten up the long winter days. It is as easy as opening a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc say Tastings columnists Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher.
We're talking here about New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, a wine that's so exciting and alive that we're surprised the bottles don't vibrate on shelves. We thought a tasting of New Zealand's signature wine would be a good idea right now, both so that we could get an early blast of spring and because the brand-new, fresh-as-can-be 2008 vintage is arriving on shelves. New Zealand's harvest takes place early in the year -- in fact, the 2009 harvest should be kicking off any day now -- so many of the 2008 wines are already here.
The story thus far: Just 15 years ago, New Zealand's most-planted grape was Müller-Thurgau. But when the country decided that it wanted to compete in the international wine market, it planted better, more-commercial grapes. It placed a big bet on Sauvignon Blanc and it really did change the wine world.
Not only did New Zealand's Sauvignon Blanc become famous, but it woke up wine drinkers and winemakers everywhere to what this grape could be when allowed to express its varietal character: fresh and clean, with exceptionally juicy smells and tastes of kiwi, bell pepper, fresh-mowed grass, grapefruit and other mouth-watering things. Sauvignon Blanc has been one of the world's great grapes forever and now outstanding, affordable examples -- often based on the clean New Zealand model -- are coming from California, Chile, South Africa and just about everywhere else.
As recently as 2001, when we conducted a broad blind tasting of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, we cautioned that they weren't available everywhere. That has changed. New Zealand exports to the U.S. rose sixfold between 2000 and 2007, before flattening last year. Now there are dozens of labels prominently displayed at wine stores everywhere. There is also a greater variety of other New Zealand wines, especially its signature red, Pinot Noir, which is worth trying, although we've found it's not, in general, a great value.
Dow Jones New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Index
In a tasting of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from the 2007 and 2008 vintages, these were our favorites. These are great with seafood. All of these are from the Marlborough region except as marked.
Kim Crawford Wines 2008 $15.99*.
Very Good/Delicious. Best of tasting. Remarkable balance of cleanliness and intensity. Makes you smile with its mouth-popping vibrancy and sunshine-like, exuberant, lime-kiwi tastes, but it also has minerals underneath and some weight, a white-peach fleshiness that gives it presence. Classy and well-made. Repeat best-of-tasting.
Drylands Estate Wines 2007 $14.99.
Very Good/Delicious. Best value. Rounder and fuller than most, with some extra stature. A dash of pepper. Soulful. Reminded us of white Bordeaux in its classiness -- amazing at the price.
Isabel Vineyard 2007 $15.99.
Very Good/Delicious. Ripe, juicy grapefruit with a touch of something deeper. Warming, friendly, happy and very satisfying.
Mt. Difficulty Wines 2007 (Central Otago) $18.99.
Very Good/Delicious. Exceptionally clean, vibrant and alive. Seems to leap from the glass with gooseberries, melon, pineapple and other fruits.
Brancott (Montana Wines) 2008 $10.99*.
Very Good. Pure wine, pure taste and pure joy. Tastes like very ripe grapes picked and squeezed right into our mouths. A real lightness about it, with a long, exceptionally mouth-watering finish. Longtime favorite.
Vavasour Wines 2007 (Awatere Valley) $16.29.
Very Good. Tastes true. Juicy, with some weight and a long, grapefruit/green-pepper finish. Proud wine, aggressively varietal. Repeat favorite.
Allan Scott Wines & Estates 2008 $13.99.
Good/Very Good. Think of sorbet: cleansing and pure. Plenty of grapefruit taste, but an austerity and restraint that make it especially easy to enjoy.
Mount Nelson (Tenuta Campo di Sasso) 2007 $19.99.
Good/Very Good. Restrained and calm, more refined and relaxed than many and therefore perhaps better with food. Nice combination of bell peppers and grapefruit. This wine is from Lodovico Antinori, who created Ornellaia, an Italian Super Tuscan.
Oyster Bay Wines 2008 $12.50*.
Good/Very Good. Just plain fun. Clean and fresh, with plenty of kiwi and a particularly lively finish. Lacks much intensity and depth, but makes up for it in charm and fresh fruit.
NOTE: Wines are rated on a scale that ranges: Yech, OK, Good, Very Good, Delicious and Delicious! These came from California, New Jersey and New York. *We paid $17.99 for Kim Crawford, $9.99 for Brancott and $10.49 for Oyster Bay, but these prices appear to be more representative. Prices vary widely.
In the past, we have considered New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc consistently flavorful and well-priced. Has that happy trend continued? We bought more than 50 from the 2007 and 2008 vintages to find out. We did not set a price limit, but we paid more than $30 for just one of the wines, and most cost less than $15. At a time when consumers are looking for friendly, consistently reliable wines at good prices, is this a keeper?
Our answer: yes.
In flight after flight, we discussed how fresh, pure and true these wines tasted, with all sorts of just-picked, tropical fruit tastes. They were not afraid to be varietal -- "OK, I smell like a fresh bell pepper; take me as I am" -- and, time after time, offered mouth-watering, juicy and very long finishes that demanded another sip (and some seafood). That's not to say they were all the same, but their differences were subtle. We had an interesting -- and delicious -- illustration of that in one flight when we had two wines, back to back, that had much in common, and yet....
No. 1: "True green-pepper nose. Vibrant, alive, pure. 'Seems so simple,' Dottie says. 'Just press great fruit.' A purity about it that makes it easy. There's a lightness about it, yet also a long, juicy finish."
No. 2: "Green-pepper nose. Has some weight. Round and full, with a certain stature. Full, even fluffy in mouth, with an ephemeral finish. Really interesting. White peaches and a shake of pepper. Fleshy. Has the presence of a white Bordeaux."
No. 1 turned out to be a longtime favorite, Brancott, from the 2008 vintage. The price: about $11. Wow. No. 2 was Drylands Estate 2007 and it costs around $15. What a deal.
By the way, the best-known Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, Cloudy Bay, was not among our favorites this time (we had the 2008 in two flights). Our best of tasting, as it turned out, was a repeat from our last tasting, in 2005: Kim Crawford, which melded the best of both of the styles above into a delicious whole. It costs around $16. The importer, Icon Estates of St. Helena, Calif., says the winery made 175,000 cases, of which 125,000 were imported and distributed nationwide.
These wines are meant to be enjoyed while they're young and fresh, which is why almost all of them are sealed with screwcaps. So today, go out and pick one up. Or, better yet, pick up two different ones. When you taste them side-by-side, you may think they're pretty much identical at first. But the more you taste, and the more they get air and warmth, the more you will sense differences. Keep sipping and we guarantee that it will feel like spring to you before you know it.
Our email address is wine@wsj.com. Because of the volume of mail we receive, we cannot respond personally to all notes, but we do our best.
|
