Cast your minds back to the start of the year. Yes, I know it’s difficult and some of us can’t remember what happened yesterday but you may recall a premium winemaking group lauching: The Specialist Winegrowers of New Zealand.
Sauvignon Blanc accounts for 80% of the wine that leaves Kiwi ports yet the Specialists didn’t have a Savvy in their portfolio, claiming there were few producers who specialised solely in the variety.
It’s also a price-sensitive variety, as Chris Canning of The Hay Paddock, told me in an article for decanter.com ‘Sauvignon Blanc is such a cut-throat market.’
‘There was a little prejudice toward the variety. We want to decouple ourselves from the New Zealand wine brand image that is slanted toward Sauvignon Blanc,’ he said back in January.
However, the group’s tune has changed - they have just announced Marlborough’s Fairbourne Estate will be the sixth member of the Specialists, dedicated to Sauvignon Blanc.
According to the press release, Fairbourne has been on the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc scene since the early 1990’s. Embarrassingly, I have never visited them, tried their wines and heard very little about them, so I can’t tell you whether they are any good! I will endeavour to change that.
Fairbourne joins Waiheke-based The Hay Paddock and Destiny Bay; fizz producers No.1 Family Estate; Gewurztraminer specialists Vinoptima and, Wooing Tree from Central Otago.
Matt Dicey, winemaker at Mt Difficulty, introduces this episode of Unfiltered. He wriggles out of telling us his birth year and loves the Matrix…Keanu, you still have your fans!
If you had a Central Otago monopoly board, who’d be your Old Kent Road and who’d be your Mayfair?
I’ve had a few Old Kent Road Pinots but I shall spare them the Hall of Shame today. However, Felton Road (the road, not the winery) is probably the Mayfair - or “Park Lane” – says Duncan Forsyth, ‘the big cheese’, at Mount Edward.
Likewise, according to Matthew Jukes’ official classification, two of New Zealand’s top three Pinot Noir producers are based along this Bannockburn roadway: Mt Difficulty and Felton Road.
While Mount Edward is a Gibbston Valley-based producer, it bought an orchard here in 2007 at an “exorbitant” price (lucky there were no houses or hotels or it would’ve cost even more). But it’s worth it in Forsyth’s eyes.
“As time goes on I think it will vault ahead of everyone else,” he says. “It is the Park Lane of Central Otago.”
The first vintage of ‘Muirkirk’ Pinot Noir (well, all 65 cases of it) has already been released, made from existing vines planted in 1997. It’s more Oxford Street at the moment but as the vines get older, you can imagine that it could move up to Park Lane.
Despite a recession and a halt to planting throughout the rest of New Zealand, Forsyth planted another 4ha there last year. “I think we were the only fools to plant last year,” he laughs. Well, you’ve got to be a little bit crazy to become a winemaker in the first place.
New Zealand has become renowned for its Pinot Noir. There are some great examples out there – Felton Road and Ata Rangi are the true greats while Waitaki Pinot from Ostler and Valli, and Pyramid Valley are up there in my opinion. But there is a lot of expensive dross.
I was invited to judge for tizwine.com yesterday and while I can’t reveal the outcome, after almost 60 Pinot Noirs, I felt depressed. Admittedly we were tasting the 2008 vintage, which wasn’t great by any means but my God they were boring.
Too many ‘blah’ wines as one of my fellow judges aptly put it: “lacklustre”, “soft”, “falls away on the finish”, note after note read. And a rather strange metallic note ran through one of the flights. If you’re a winemaker and can tell me why, we judges would be interested to know. Of course, there were a few good wines but nothing that would suggest New Zealand is renowned globally for its Pinot Noir.
Perhaps it was the selection that was sent in but there are clearly major improvements needed to bring the general standard up. And the prices that are being asked for them? The phrase ‘daylight robbery’ springs to mind.