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Jeremy Matthew
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2067
 | | 01/06/2003 10:07 PM |
| These three regions make up an interesting mix of NZ's largest (Hawkes Bay and Gisborne) and one of the smallest (Martinborough ) regions in NZ. Martinborough is NZ's second smallest region by production after Nelson (which is about to move up the chain making Martinborough the smallest) .
Sav Blanc was planted in all these regions in response to Montanas attained fame with it's Marlborough Sav Blanc. NZ's relative ambiguity meant that regions which weren't suited to Sav Blanc could capitalise on Montana's work, which they did. Thankfully this rather miscreant attitude changed over the years and now Sav Blanc is produced in these regions for novelty as much for sales.
Of the three regions discussed only Martinborough produces a style comparable to Marlborough.
Gisborne has chardonnay and muller thurgau (thankfully this is disappearing) as the two most planted white varietals. This is closely followed by semillon and chenin blanc and lastly sav blanc. And with good reason. Gisborne is a hard place to grow good quality grapes.
When its hot in Gisborne it is so hot that they have to protect the grapes from UV dammage. Special canopy systems are utilised for this.
Nowhere is this more true than with Sav Blanc. The rich soils and idiosyncratic climate make the vines vulnerable to over cropping, odium and powdery mildew problems as well as producing sav's which tend to be flabby. However when it is achieved the wine can be quite stunning.
The best recent vintages of Gisborne are 1996, 1998 and 2001 (note this is only for sav's). The summers were relatively long and produced ripe full fruit with good concentrations of acids. The style when good tends to be very grassy (they often blend an amount of semillon in with it.) with good length and moderate complexity. As opposed to the lychee and goosebury dominant Marlborough style we are so used to Gisborne sav blanc tends more towards a cut grass lemon zest style, certainly more troical than it's northern counterparts while retaining more "savoury" characters than it's southern neighbours. This complex and intergrated style is rare because of the scarcity of excellent Gisborne vintages but when achieved is worth looking for.
Labels of note are Milton (who do a sav sem blend for about $18 NZD/$9 USD), Parker (unlikely that it is available in the US) and Revington (about $15 NZD or $7.50 USD).
Hawkes Bay is renowned in NZ for big reds and chardonnays. However much like Gisborne the irresponsible and short sighted attitude of the early eighties gauranted the planting of much Sav Blanc. Most is pretty average but there are certainly some good exceptions.
Hawkes Bay sav blanc is about as close to Sancerre in style that NZ produces. This is because the increased sun light (Hawkes Bay is second in most sunlight hours recorded in NZ behind Nelson) increases the risk of burning the grapes (we actually have that problem here-no ozone layer I'm guessing), coupled with the hot northerlies and Sou-westers that Hawkes Bay gets the biggest problem they face is often bud burning and leaf dammage, but this is rare. However because the winters are so mild in Hawkes Bay (Due to proximaty to the Pacific-the last point in NZ where the warm Pacific has a measurable effect. Further south the Pacific gets very cold as the Antartic effects the waters.) the sav blanc grapes very rarely get strong acids or high tartaric acids which benefit the wine with the nice zest we all like so much. However there are one or two exceptions (as always) but these aren't typical Hawkes Bay sav's.
A typical Hawkes Bay sav is more vegetive with crisp but not overbearing acids dominated by lemon and citrus as opposed to tropical. They also tend to have higher alcohol than the more southern regions and can even be almost sweet in flavour.
Names to look out for- Sacred Hill ( A very typical but reasonably prived Hawkes Bay sav Blanc- about $15 NZD- $7.50 USD) Te Mata Cape Crest (Southern Hawkes Bay almost Martinborough- retails about $22 NZD or $11 USD) Te Mata Castle Hill (More traditional Hawkes Bay style about $25 NZD or $12.50 USD), Esk Valley (about $20 NZD or $10 USD), Wishart ( A very interesting style as it is given Malo-influence- about $20 NZD- you get the ideaq with USD so I won't list the USD price anymore). Brookfields (very rare but quite interesting $16 NZD).
Martinborough is NZ's pinot capital but the soils there are in fact more suited to Bordeaux varieties (of which we all know Sav Blanc is.). It is actually the climate which suits pinot. For sav blanc this means the wines tend to be very concentrated in acids. The flavour of the wines often takes a year to develope properly as they are hidden by the concentrated acids particularly vitamen C. This confers an obvious citrus note but grapefruit (ironic name really in consideration) and melon characters can often be found in Martinborugh sav blancs.
Favourites are Nga Waka (about $22 NZD) , Martinborough Vineyards (about $28 NZD), Dry River (impossible to find but a stunner- $40 NZD) and thats about it.
Next Nelson and Marlborough. | | | |
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