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Giesen Winery
Marlborough

Press

TASTINGS
By DOROTHY J. GAITER AND JOHN BRECHER
March 25, 2005

New Zealand's Big Bang Theory
Its Lively Sauvignon Blanc Sets Off Welcome Sparks; Beyond the Cookie Cutter

A flood of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand's 2004 vintage is about to wash up in your wine store. Is this a good thing? We conducted a large tasting to find out. New Zealand is one of the world's newer hot spots for good wine. As recently as 1995, New Zealand's top grape was the undistinguished Muller-Thurgau. But as the country focused on better grapes and international markets, it found a winner in world-class Sauvignon Blanc.

Sauvignon Blanc is used to make some great white wines in the Loire Valley of France -- we're particularly partial to Sancerre -- and it's California's second most popular white wine, well behind Chardonnay. For a time, though, too many American vintners made Sauvignon Blanc into a kind of junior Chardonnay. They stripped it of its traditional grassy, crisp character and sometimes dumbed it down with a lot of oak. Into that breach stepped New Zealand's winemakers, who created mouth-watering Sauvignon Blanc that just about leapt from the glass, with aggressive green-pepper smells, juicy tastes of lime and passion fruit and clean, endless finishes. Dottie tends to call some of them "firecrackers."

A Rapid Rise
We first wrote about New Zealand's Sauvignon Blanc years ago, when the trend was just beginning, and things moved quickly. Imports of New Zealand wine into the U.S. rose 17-fold between 1994 and 1999 -- and have more than quadrupled since then. But Mother Nature intervened. Spring frosts hit New Zealand's vineyards hard in 2003, especially in Marlborough, which is the country's top region for Sauvignon Blanc. Harvests fell sharply. Fortunately, 2004 was a whole 'nother story, with good weather producing a record harvest of Sauvignon Blanc -- about 2½ times as much as the previous year.

Because New Zealand's harvest takes place in March and April and its Sauvignon Blanc is made to be drunk young and fresh (one reason why screw caps are so widely used on these wines), we started seeing 2004s on shelves months ago. Now they're everywhere. It seemed clear that, with spring and summer approaching, it was time to try these warm-weather wines. In any event, we love the idea of drinking a wine that was growing on vines in New Zealand a year earlier. That kind of connection is one of the reasons we fell in love with wine in the first place.

But we were a little worried: We have found that Australia's quick rise to popularity has led to far too many boring, cookie-cutter wines. Has New Zealand, another new star, lost its way, too? We bought every 2004 we saw for a blind tasting to find out. We found plenty. We bagged 'em and went to work.
Here's the good news: The wines are excellent. They're bright, vibrant, drinkable and fun. They're crisp and alive. Some are charmingly two-dimensional, all ripe fruit, almost bracing. Others have a little bit of a mineral underpinning that gives them more seriousness and makes them better with weightier foods.

In Search of Intensity
We run hot and cold on New Zealand's most famous Sauvignon Blanc, from Cloudy Bay. In a previous tasting, we loved the 2002, which we described as "very serious wine. Flinty and big, with awesome fruit. A remarkable purity of tastes." But we found the 2004, in two flights, simply OK to Good -- and certainly not worth about $23, when our favorites were generally much less. We also were disappointed with one of our longtime favorites, Villa Maria, which we found (in two flights) simple and even slightly sweet-tasting. One wine you'll likely see is Monkey Bay, a new label from giant Constellation Brands, which is distributing 100,000 cases of it nationwide. It's a pleasant critter quaffer -- and a pretty good deal, since it generally seems to be selling for about $8.99 -- but it lacks the explosive, face-slapping intensity of our favorites.

Ultimately, we liked all of these wines so much that it was hard to choose among them. But our favorite stood out in two flights. "Crisp, just-cut green pepper on the nose. Juicy. Crisp and clean, with lots of fruit. Very, very ripe lemon and kiwi, but it's complete, not just a lemon bomb. It sparkles. Dry, clean and vibrant, but some stuff, too -- some minerals. Serious wine. The complete package." This turned out to be from Kim Crawford and, like all of our favorites, was from the Marlborough region. It generally costs about $15.99, though we bought it at a state store in Pennsylvania for $11.99.
So while these wines are so wonderfully young and fresh -- like, today -- go pick one up. And while you're at it, if you happen to see a Pinot Noir from New Zealand, that's the next big thing. Trust us.

The Dow Jones 2004 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Index

In a blind tasting of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from the 2004 vintage, these were our favorites. But don't focus on these labels. Simply pick one up and pair it with seafood or salad tonight. Don't serve too cold. All of these are from Marlborough, the region that produces many of New Zealand's top Sauvignon Blancs.

Giesen Wines Sauvignon Blanc 2004 $12.99
Very Good It sparkles in the glass with such exuberant fruit it just about bites your nose. Nicely tart, with some minerals.

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