Surprising Sauvignon

It cost, Dad tells me, not much more than $10 a bottle (although I believe the regular retail would be closer to $15) but the Vidal East Coast Sauvignon Blanc 2009 was the first Sauvignon Blanc I tried from the new vintage and I was pleasantly surprised.

This mongrel is a blend of Marlborough and Hawke's Bay fruit (and perhaps a little Gisborne too, so my sources say but the official line says otherwise) but for all its mixed up pedigree and rock bottom price it has a classy, dry, mineral palate that had me reaching for another dash (now we're baby-led we drink in dashes and splashes rather than glasses).

The nose is ripe and bright without bursting with overdone passionfruit thiols and the palate shows a similar restraint. A little minerality and a lemon lift. Juicy acidity so much fleshier and more fun in the mouth than anything 2008 could conjure up. This may be indicative of the quality of 2009 in general but for all that the Vidal East Coast Savvy would be a great buy for everyday drinking. A 'never-disappoint' type of drop to stand by in the cellar. a 3 glass/dash wine.

Getting Ambidextrous

Little more than a week on and I'm amazed at myself. Amazed at wee man. Quietly thankful.

It's not going to be as terrifyingly tricky as I thought last week. Tricky, no doubt. But not impossible.

And it is possible to nurse a baby and have a wee sip of wine. Only a wee sip mind.

My thoughtful father ferried a lovely bottle of Alan McCorkindale Waipara Pinot Noir 2007 from Auckland and I had that at dinner over the weekend. Worth seeking out it shows McCorkindale - who is a dab hand at the varietal white - isn't too shabby with Pinot Noir either. And it confirms for me that Waipara is where you want Nu Zillund Pinot to hail from. Just a little more layered, a little more stinky and less fruit forward than most Otago beasties.

Then last night Rich came home with some 2007 Sauvignon Blanc. Past it? Not at all. And I'd rather drink the last of the 2007 Sauvignon than have any truck with the 2008.

This was from the Montana Terroir series which also makes that lovely Riverpoint Gewurztraminer we had the other day. This is the Conders Forest Sauvignon Blanc 2007, hailing from Raupara in Marlborough and made to express the distinct characteristics of that area. Definitely different to other Marlborough Savvy styles this is less passionfruit and more red capsicum with tart guava. A broad palate. Sweaty but not too sweaty.

And as to getting ambidextrous?

Notes burning a hole in the notebook

Apparently it takes a little longer than I declare to get around to writing up notes.

This was a little off the wall collection of samples from Procure.

Ostler 'Blue House Vines' Riesling Waitaki Valley 2008
The Waitaki Valley in North Otago is only just starting to have a collection of vineyards to call its own and has a climate and growing season that is quite distinct from Central. At 11.5% this is all super fresh lime and minerality. Sharply defined the palate shows a unique combination of stonefruit reigned in by taut, tight lemony acids. A lively riesling with heaps of personality. a 2 glass wine.

Alana Estate Sauvignon Blanc Martinborough 2008
Very shy for a sauvignon fresh off the blocks, wafting a little peach skin but not much else. The palate is fruit sweet, perhaps some nettle characteristics but lacking varietal typicity. a 1 glass wine.

Two Rivers of Marlborough Convergence Sauvignon Blanc 2008
A commercial, correct, varietal style. A safe sauvignon with broad appeal. Peaches backed up by a gunflint and a plump palate. a 1 glass wine.

Elephant Hill Viognier Hawke's Bay 2008
Chargrilled apricots in the aroma make this a less delicate expression than it's 2007 predecessor. It is refreshing and spicy showing good acidity but without an ethereal floral component at this stage of development. Nonetheless a pretty and pure expression of Viognier. a 3 glass wine.

Ostler 'Caroline' Pinot Noir Waitaki Valley 2006
Dark, brooding and a little bit feral this Pinot evolves in the glass. The fruit is wieghty blackberry, mingled with licorice and the savoury, gamey elements appear before resolving into limestone minerality, earth and lemons. Complex but lacking balance with the barnyard notes drowning out the fruit. Perhaps even the slight horsehair whiff of Brett? a 1 glass wine.

Elephant Hill Reserve Syrah Hawke's Bay 2007
Smoky, bloody and opulent. A flowing palate of fine tannins and dark fruit. Still developing but enticing now this is Hawke's Bay Syrah at its layered, generous best. a 1 bottle wine.

Tasting Time

It's mad tasting time out there in the restaurant trenches. Summer is approaching and summer is traditionally the time when liquor seems to flow a little more freely. Summer is also host to the Nu Zillund Christmas, a time when plonk of all descriptions flows like a river through the bars and restaurants and out to sea (eventually, I guess).

Here in the relative quiet of Spring we prepare. The Savvys are (mostly) in and new releases of other flavours are showing up also. So many wineries in Aotearoa and all involved in a friendly tussle for a piece of the pie. How to choose? In tastings of course. Some are elaborate affairs with many bells and whistles to coax you into stocking this wine or that. Others are simple. A wine, a winemaker, a twinkle in the eye.

As was yesterday when Glenn Thomas, winemaker of Tupari Sauvignon Blanc, showed up with a pair of vintages. A splash in the glass, a little story. I was quite impressed.

Tupari Sauvignon Blanc Awatere, Marlborough 2007
A little deeper colour in the glass due to the extra year of bottle age and from 10% barrel ferment for 6 months. A suave, steely, mineral nose that mixes orange blossom, white fruits and peaches. Lees work gives a creamy mouthfeel to underpin the slate and stonefruit of the palate. Grown-up and food friendly.
a 3 glass wine

Matariki Wines and Chinese Food

An impromptu dinner organised by the effusive and charming 'King of Spain' saw Rich and I eating at Canton Cafe last night in the kitchen upstairs. Not only was I unaware that Canton Cafe had an upstairs but I certainly wouldn't have picked it as a place conducive to extensive wine tasting. However in our bolt hole away from the frantic pace of the main dining room and with winemaker Rod McDonald pouring from Matariki Wines extensive portfolio we had an informal and, at times, hilarious tasting.

My notes were hastily scrawled as the 'lazy suzy' whizzed plates (and sometimes glasses) around and as such are truncated at best. Rod also brought a few old world wines for the sake of compare and contrast.

Matariki Sauvignon Blanc Hawke's Bay 2007
Shy, creamy nose of banana and guava and an enveloping palate displaying lemons, minerals and a herbal tinge. a 3 glass wine

Domaine Vacheron 'Les Romains' Sancerre 2006
Creamy lemon, delicate with soft acids and a leafy aspect. a 3 glass wine

Matariki Chardonnay Hawke's Bay 2005
Showing great bottle development this leads with grilled nuts and grapefruit and the palate rounds out to ripe nectarine with only a background of 'old fridge' starting to come in to play. The citrus and stonefruit characters are quite forward still with a biscuity, buttery weight in the mid palate. a 4 glass wine

From this point my notes are nothing more than a few words and may take a little help from Rich to piece together. More later

Cable Bay New Release Tasting, August 2008

With a mixture of light-filled, seaview-filled winery; charming, self-effacing winemaker and delicious degustation lunch Cable Bay Vineyards on Waiheke put on the kind of show that made it hard not to like their wines. But, winemaker Neil Culley's mantra of "imagination, interest, evolution and restraint" was fairly hard to resist also and led to liquid that pushed buttons in all the right places.

Cable Bay Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2008
A mixture of Omaka Valley and Raupara fruit brings both restraint and weight to this Sauvignon Blanc. Meyer lemon, a little feijoa and a peach skin texture lift this wine from safe and give it a nice breadth and the wine finishes with clean grapefruit and coriander flavours.
A 2 glass wine.

Cable Bay Marlborough Gewurztraminer 2008
Fruit from the Brentwood vineyard in Raupara this is delicate and full of petals. At 7 grams residual sugar it isn't cloying and instead offers up pink smoker lollies and baking spice before falling a little flat on the back palate. Made in a 'drink now' style this is pretty and appealing.
A 2 glass wine.

Cable Bay Waiheke Island Chardonnay 2007
The 6th vintage of this wine has lent winemake Neil Culley the confidence to pick earlier knowing that careful handling and technique in the winery will bring the Chardonnay closer to a restrained style that will evolve in the bottle. Many small parcels of fruit were brought together to construct the wine and the result is elegant and full of interesting nuances. Oatmeal, white peach and soft, fluffy nougat on the nose belie the complete lack of malolactic fermentation (apparently the malic acids are metabolised in the growing process on warm and sunny Waiheke). The piercing palate is also a surprise but demonstrates a Chardonnay in need of time in the bottle.
A 4 glass wine.

Close but not quite

I wanted something textural, something a little bit different. I was thinking Vouvray, Nu Zillund Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Viognier. Somehow I bought Sauvignon Blanc again. Still, the Fairhall Downs Small and Smith Family Estate 2007 seemed to fit the bill; elevage in a mixture of stainless and seasoned French oak, fine lees for 4 months and unfined this is care-full Savvy.

Greeny straw with wafts of blackcurrant leaf, dried mint and minerals this promises a real departure from typical Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The palate is grainy and a little bit shocking in the way the first bite of a Braeburn apple is shocking. Malic acid and a prickly sensation. There's also apricot, fennel and juniper and a definite sense of wet twigs reminding me of the undergrowth notes that appear in Chablis. For all this the wine is still developing and at this stage seems a bit tight. Spritzy and developing. a 1 glass wine.

Alan McCorkindale Sauvignon Blanc 2007

Sometimes you buy wine to please yourself and sometimes you buy wine to appeal to someone else's palate.

When faced with the rows and rows of wine on a rare Saturday night off it's so tempting to throw money out of your wallet and secure something lovely, special, celebratory and fine, in keeping with the ethos that (erudite food writer) Nigel Slater espouses when saying that you should never buy a bottle for yourself that you wouldn't take to a friend - as why would you treat yourself less well than others you love?

Having said that.... I know the predilection of my winsome Sonj for a fruity Sav. Nothing too complicated, too acidic, too sweet or too...... interesting. So you makes your choices and you pays your money.

When we first poured a glass and sat down to gossip I have to admit that this wasn't my cup of tea. It seemed blandly Sauvignon without, even, a belligerent nose leaping out of the glass. Hours later and with a glass still left in the bottle and some time for contemplation it seems a different beastie

Nothing much to speak of on the nose until you really shake it up when it starts to get a little like really sour kids-made lemonade, green melon and hawthorn. Subtle though and hardly 'bursting through'. The palate is textured citrus. Lemons of all sorts, pith and zest. With such a dominant character I can't decide if this is one dimensional or compelling in its focus. A 1 (or maybe 2) glass wine

Surrendering to the thrill of the new

(n.b. I stole the title and some phrases for this post from here)

In a drinking culture that eagerly awaits the next vintage of Cloudy Bay, Dry River, Palliser Estate or whatever, there's something equally bracing about surrendering to the thrill of the new: the sense of occasion elicited when chancing on a wine you've never heard of before, especially when that wine, after the first whiff, displays attention grabbing aromas and promises a distinctive palate.

Add to that the frisson that comes with finding said wine far from the salubrious surrounds of an upmarket wine emporium, but rather hiding away in a late night convenience store.

Anchorage Sauvignon Blanc Nelson 2006
The straw yellow colour is speaking to the age of the wine and extra time in the bottle gives this an initial whiff of sweat, hay and green capsicum. This seems grown up and harmonious, without Sauvignon Blanc's usual adolescent overtures.There's also a definite trace of gunflint. It tastes of grapefruit, green bean and honey and the palate is broad ending with a peach skin texture although when colder it develops a Camembert aroma and a similar creamy texture in the mouth.A 4 glass wine.

I love the fact that screw-cap closures are extending the life of our normally short-lived Nu Zillund savvy. At 2 years bottle age and with the 2008 vintage Sauvignon Blanc almost on the shelves this is delightful, different and definitely showing well. Maybe we shouldn't be so hasty to offload the older aromatic whites...

Mystery Wines

I realise that there are more wineries in New Zealand than I could possibly keep track of but this latest round of tasting threw up some intriguing question marks.

Bascand Estate Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2007
From a Waipara winery comes a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Not that mysterious. The wine itself is subtle and classic. Green apple and grass. Limes and tropical fruit. A safe savvy nose and a rounded palate complete the picture in a wine that isn't angular but somehow isn't pretty either.

Bascand Estate Chardonnay Marlborough 2006
Hints of butter from 70% malolactic fermentation make this a texturally rich and nutty mouthful. Over-ripe nectarine and popcorn. Sunny tasting and at a great price point. This would only sit at around $45 on my pricey winelist.

Bascand Estate Pinot Noir Marlborough 2006
Soft red fruits and an earthy perfume form the nose with a suggestion of something feral underneath (sweaty horse-trek). An uninhibited nose that's more than a little promising. Then a simple palate, left waiting for nuances that never come. The taste of stone-fruits that I would expect from Chardonnay make an out of place appearance. Nectarine amongst the strawberry. Ending with bayleaf this isn't delivering at the moment.

Now here's the real mystery.

Waiau Estate Gimblett Gravels Hawke's Bay Syrah 2006
This new (to me) winery is somehow getting Syrah fruit of the Hawke's Bay gravels which leaves me at a bit of a loss. That's not easy land to get hold of and I wouldn't have thought that many would be giving away fruit from the variety tipped as the great red hope of the Hawke's Bay. There's a link to Hatton Estate but I'm not sure how.
Jammy at first with meaty undertones. Sweet, fresh blood and violets. Delicate blueberry and blue flowers. A bewitching feminine style for all the bloodiness. A frilly Victorian bodice ripper with a whiff of apricots.

This is prepossessing Syrah and a mystery worth solving. If anyone has any notions?

jumping at bargains

Just scored the Old Coach Road Sauvignon Blanc from Foodtown for $10.99 and thought that this would be perfect as a late night tipple. I've always kinda admired this Seifried supermarket label as it produces real quality from Nelson grapes at a quarter of the price but with just as much verve and zip.

The Old Coach Road Sauvignon Blanc 2007 is lovely and ripe and definitely more at the tropical end of the Sauvignon spectrum. A generous mouthful and although Sav wouldn't usually feature at this time of year; the lovely cold, clear afternoons can make a buxom Sav just the wine. This one is a full straw gold colour yet has a delicate nose. It jumps into a palate of pawpaw, mandarin citrus and a touch of classic gooseberry with a bit of wild mint in the background. Refreshing without being racy. Sound and agreeable.

An embarrassment of riches

My long absence from posting would suggest that there's been a dearth of wine in my life when the opposite is, infact, true.

There's been an extended range of Larry McKenna's Kupe at the bar and a very extensive afternoon in the snug where Koru, Pyramid Valley and various vintages of Providence were ferried in through rush hour traffic.

There has been a revelation of a Pinot Gris at table 20 one afternoon whilst the sun was still shining on our Indian summer and 'The King of Spain' brought along the new vintage of my favourite New Zilund oak aged Sauvignon Blanc just last week (amongst other things).

And I've got notes, now all I need is the time to write them up....

Testing Older Sauvignon Blanc

Somehow the wine I write about seems to over-represent Sauvignon Blanc as though that were all I imbibed. Not the case, but as I have just 'sup-ed' Sav...

The Kahurangi Heaphy Estate Nelson Sauvignon Blanc 2006 was pulled out in an attempt to cull some of the older Sauvignons from the cellar.

Deep gold with a very tinned asparagus nose. The palate is sweaty-tropical, full of really ripe banana and end of summer stonefruit. The vegetal aspect is barely aparent in the flavour instead there is a grainy, limey, slightly stone-y pertness. This is pungeant, squishy and a bit divisive.

Rich thinks that it's lost its freshness and I still feel that these squashy flavours are worth seeking out.

We ended up using the Craggy Range Te Muna Road Sauvignon Blanc 2007 as a foil for the other wine's character. Sometimes tasting in tandem in this fashion can help to solidify (or change) your opinions about a wine.

A usual Sauvignion pale gold in the glass. Aromatically feijoa, papaya and peach with soft acids in the mouth. A pleasant, flirty palate and just a bit flinty. This Sauvignon has a very long finish yet still seems a bit frivolous. A texture like a gorgeous red autumn apple.

Surprisingly, despite the not insignificant charms of the Craggy Range, I won in the end with Rich admitting to a fondness for the Kahurangi after all. It seems, with the advent of screwcaps, wines like Sauvignon Blanc that we traditionally drank young can be interesting later in life.

Beaten to the punchline

I realise that it's all very well to say so after the fact, but I had been planning to pen a lengthy article about the state of Sauvignon Blanc in Nu Zild. It's a subject much on my mind what with it being our wine-y calling card to the rest of the world and yet holding on to the lower ranks of the ladder in most wine-makers estimation.

It also suffers being dismissed as simple stuff, not worthy of debate in the same fashion as Chardonnay or Pinot Noir and there's definitely a dichotemy in there waiting to be expounded and also there's much to love in Sauvignon Blanc despite its perceived failings.....

And it's all very well my starting out like this but the wine writer in the Viva has beaten me to most of these points in National print. I imagine there's no harm in singing the same tune but it's not as much fun as whistling your own melody. But there we go. Perhaps it's a subject deserving of a whistle anyhow.

In this vein the wine on offer was the Astrolabe Sauvignon Blanc 2007, new to the wine list and so ripe for the tasting. It seems for some reason to be the de rigueur Savvy to pop on to the list and well known to Aucklanders of a certain socio-economic type.

My first impressions are not particularly of startling aromatics although my colleagues are exclaiming over the distinctive nose. It has a leafy, lime pith aroma but it is the palate the is most distinguished element. Grainy and long. Much like a peach skin or the tart shock of biting into a new-season yellow nectarine with all the fleshy, full bodied flavour to follow. This is interwoven with a thread of nutty complexity like sucking the flesh off the stone at the end. The wine ends long, full and fresh.