Spring is sprung. The warming rains, or downpours if you live in the Auckland area, have made the grass green and lush. The lambs are frolicking in the back paddock and the mother ewes are frolicking too in the late evening dusk. And the new season's wines are pouring onto the market.

Along with these, are some new favourites, with the hope of many more to come.

If you ask me what my favourite wine is I would probably quickly answer riesling for a white and pinot noir for a red. And I love the fresh zinginess of the promise of Spring in a youthful sauvignon blanc. But if I took the time to think about it for a while, the oft forgotten gewurztraminer would have to be right up there too.

Gewurztraminer is a wine that can seduce from the outset with its pungently spicy scents laced with musk and rose petals. Then the seduction follows though on the palate with its unctuous texture and sweet ripe luscious flavours.

Take the Lawsons Dry Hills Marlborough Gewurztraminer 2001, for example. This is truly one seductive little number with its delicate rose petal, orange blossom and soap-like floral scents with hints of citrus blossom and Turkish delight. Then in the palate, the flavours seem so subtle. But as you ponder, the spice, honey, orange, roses, musk and lychees enrich on the palate to a luscious mouthful. And even though the wine has been made in the dry style (just 4.9 grams of residual sugar), the balanced fruit is sweet and ripe. The finish is rich and long.

Then there's a lingering flavour that reminds me of the spicy zestiness and pungency and oily richness of crushed fresh coriander leaves - a flavour that combines so well with spicy coriander herb influenced foods like my Aunty Edna's Marinated Fish, Indian Spiced Tomato Chicken (click here for the recipes) and Thai Fish Cakes.

Lawsons Dry Hills Marlborough Gewurztraminer 2001 was released on September 1st and costs $NZ21.95 a bottle.

It comes with the a Quality Assurance clause which says "This premium New Zealand wine is bottled as part of the Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative to ensure the quality and integrity of the product".

Check the Lawson's website www.lawsonsdryhills.co.nz for more information.

I also totally recommend the Lawson Dry Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2001. The amazingly pungent aromas leap out of the bottle even before the wine has been poured into the glass. This is absolutely classic Marlborough sauvignon blanc with gooseberries, a touch of apocrine and grass with sweet fruits emerging that hint of passionfruit and other tropical fruits. The grassy flavours are long and lingering. RRP NZ$19.95.