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Lord
of the Rings – you’ve read the book, seen the film, bought the play station
game, so now drink the wine. New Zealand and the South Island in particular was
where it was filmed. It’s also home to some superb wines. Martin
will be live on News Talk 106FM on the Moncrieff show today (14-1-05) from
3.20pm talking about Kiwi wines.
New Zealand wine has come a
long way since it burst onto the scene in the early eighties with some
startlingly new style sauvignon blancs. A flood of wines has followed where
Montana and Cloudy Bay led. The sauvignon blancs are almost universally good,
but the style has developed in the last decade or so. There are far fewer of the
pungent herbaceous green pepper dominated wines of old. Citrus, gooseberry and
passion fruit seem the order of the day. The best of them have mineral flavours
and great structure.
Meanwhile,
other grapes and regions have been developed to show that New Zealand is no one
trick pony. Quite the most impressive of these regions has been Central Otago.
Just twenty years ago it was considered too marginal a climate for grape growing
but pioneers like Irishman Alan Brady have proved once again that marginal
climates make the best wines. Is it long hang time or something in the soil or
water regime? I don’t know, but goodness it works. Wines from cool climate
grapes like chardonnay, riesling, pinot noir, pinot gris and sauvignon blanc
grown here have a startlingly European quality with a mineral layer and acidic
structure that goes way beyond the simple fruit cocktail that any good winemaker
can conjure up. The only fly in the ointment is price, particularly for pinot
noir. Sadly pinot noir has that effect on winemakers who feel that they are
worth it because the French can charge these sums. They seem to forget that
they’ve had over seventeen hundred years head start.
Elsewhere
pinot gris has made an encouraging start and not surprisingly in a cool-ish
climate riesling can be wonderful, while everyone, everywhere seems to want to
make a pinot noir. It’s a fussy grape so it’s unlikely to be successful
everywhere. Other red grapes, for me, are best confined to warmer spots like
Hawkes Bay, where cabernet can be good and even the occasional syrah at Gimlett
Gravels impresses in the right vintage, but I have to say that I am as under
whelmed by most NZ reds as I am thrilled by anything from Central Otago.
On
the show we’ll be tasting Montana Sauvignon
Blanc 2004 (widely available) at about €11.99. Some
vintages of this can be course and flavours can be dominated by pungent raw
green peppers or pea pods but this is at the elegant end of the spectrum with
citrus and gooseberry.
We
also hope to be tasting a wine from Felton Rd, the iconic Otago producer
but at the time of writing could not confirm which one.
For
a full list of the Wine Republic 2005 wines of the year click
here
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