The Internet provides us with a world of information however for me it still hasn't replaced the book. There's a fair proportion of my bookshelf space devoted to wine, which is quite a sacrifice considering how much wine I could of bought with the money spent on books.

Alongside my wine 'Bibles' like the Oxford Companion to Wine; Halliday's Atlas of Australia and New Zealand and Tom Stephenson's Wine Encyclopedia is a wide selection of books I've gathered over the years.

Wine books do date over time, particularly when they describe dynamic markets like Australia and New Zealand. This was reinforced recently when I took an old book off the shelves for a browse.

Jancis Robinson's 1989 book "Vintage Timecharts" is a fascinating read from a one-off exercise. In the book Jancis aimed to show the 'Pedigree and Performance of Fine Wines to the Year 2000'. This was done in a descriptive as well as graphical format. To do this Jancis selected a range of wines from across the globe and tasted a range of vintages from 1975 up to the 1988 vintage and then graphed how she saw their development over the ensuring ten years. Click here for a sample of one of the timechart graphs.

The selected wines are organised by major region, with a number of regions from France, then mainly by area; Italy; Germany, and so on. Within each region selected wines are profiled to illustrate the region; for example Bordeaux' Right Bank highlights Chateaux Petrus, Canon and Monbousquet, the Medoc has six selected wines; California has seven.

So what of the North, South and Left Islands?

In the section on "Australian and New Zealand", five wines are highlighted, all from Australia; there are no New Zealand wines listed at all.

In fact the entire description New Zealand wine aging profile takes up one paragraph at the end of the four page regional overview (although it is more than was described for Alice Springs). I'll quote it in full; it won't take long to transcribe:

That probably typifies the world view of potential for cellar aging for New Zealand wine 15 years ago.

So what has changed since, has New Zealand developed a track record for aging wine?

When discussing New Zealand, writers invariably talk about the freshness of the wine, even alongside discussions of evolving character and quality. There are Sauvignon Blancs that have a structure to develop with age, however the general view, is that 'it will age, but why bother'. This appears to be the approach by most makers as well and carries over to the perception of Chardonnay.

Pinot Noir is also not described in cellaring terms. On her return from the New Zealand Pinot Noir celebration in 2001 Jancis reported "Fromm has long gone its own way, making wines clearly designed for much longer ageing than the New Zealand norm - an element lacking in most examples, with the notable exception of Dry River."

Of the other varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah or Merlot, not much is heard, however from the examples I've tasted to date there is plenty of scope to expect ample rewards from putting some prime examples in the cellar.

However the perception remains that if you are selecting wines for the cellar you'd elsewhere than New Zealand. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, the world market is based around 'drink now' or short term cellaring and the freshness and quality found across New Zealand provides capacity fits this well, especially in the mid-premium to premium price points.

Is having creating ageworthy wines important for the New Zealand wine Industry? A tougher question indeed, and one for the industry to answer. Personally, I'd like to see it.

Going to where we started, Jancis Robinson's book "Vintage Timecharts" may be well out of print but is still an entertaining and recommended read. You may find it in second hand bookshops. It was a bold experiment and it's a pity there hasn't been a follow-up, perhaps this time two paragraphs on New Zealand!

© Murray Almond
17 August 2003

Any feedback? Send it to Murray at fromtheleftisland@yahoo.com.au