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New Zealand wine of the week - www.wineoftheweek.com
edited by Sue Courtney
Wine of the Week newsletter No. 50 - 28 February 2008
28 February 2008
Dear Friends of www.wineoftheweek.com,
In this issue: -
Harvest has started A Positive Word about Wine Shows New Zealand Gold Medal Wines Retailers reusing tasting notes and not disclosing the source Recent Wines of the Week Recent Blog Entries Leap Year WinesHarvest has started
The 2008 harvest is underway in New Zealand. It started in Gisborne a couple of weeks ago with early ripening blending varieties. This week, pinot noir and chardonnay for sparkling wines are being picked. So if you're travelling in wine country the next couple of months, watch out for roads slippery with grape juice.Gisborne has long been known as the 'Chardonnay Capital' of New Zealand but a press release from Pernod Ricard has renamed Gisborne the 'Sparkling Capital' of New Zealand. Pernod Ricard (previously Montana Wines) says 2008 is their 35th annual vintage in Gisborne and it has been celebrated with the first pick of Chardonnay grapes for sparkling wine. These grapes will contribute to the base wine for Lindauer, the country's top selling sparkler, and the newer Montana Brut Cuvee.
There's lots of sparkling excitement in the air all around the country as winegrowers prepare for the biggest harvest ever, mainly due to all the new vineyards coming on stream. And the winegrowers are hoping that the hot dry conditions that most of the country has experienced this summer will continue, despite some farmers experiencing the worst drought conditions ever.
A Positive Word about Wine Shows
On Tuesday the gold results from the 55th annual Royal Easter Show Wine Awards were announced and there will be a flurry of emails from wine companies extolling their success. Indeed, Villa Maria Estate, with 13 of the 79 gold medals awarded, was very quick off the mark to tell the world of their exciting achievements. And I don't blame them. It is indeed an incredible feat.But there will be predictable show bashing articles from the anti-wine show lobby, the people who say that winning a medal in a show is like winning a lottery. But statements like these show ignorance of the wine show system.
"They don't allow for more elegant styles," is another oft-heard criticism.
Many people also criticise wine shows because the wines are judged based on a snapshot of a moment in time in a wine's life.
But a snapshot of a moment of time in a wine's life is what a consumer will get if they go to a winery cellar door and taste a wine - and make their decision to buy on that taste rather than the marketing hype that often accompanies the tasting. A snapshot of a moment of time in a wine's life is what a consumer will get if they try a wine at a retail store tasting, or at an in-store promotion - at a super market, for example.
But a medal award is more than a snapshot and it's hardly a lottery. There is also experience and knowledge on the part of the wine judges.
At a wine show, wines are judged in classes of similar wines - that is sauvignon blancs from the 2007 vintage are judged together. Dry rieslings are judged in one class and off-dry to medium rieslings in another. Current vintage and older vintages separated as well. It is only later when top golds are judged together, in order to choose the trophy winner for the varietal.
The panels of three experienced wine judges make the decision on the medal that a wine will receive and the decision is based on many factors.
The overriding criterion for a gold medal wine is balance. Balance and concentration and varietal typicity while allowing for regional and subregional stylistic interpretation. For example, a sauvignon blanc should taste like sauvignon blanc, not like a riesling. A pinot noir should taste like pinot noir, not like a cabernet sauvignon. Most of all, they should be wines that consumers want to drink.
They don't use plastic thimble-like glasses that you see in supermarket wine tasting promotions, they use a glass that will assist in revealing all the wine's intricacies - even for the "more elegant styles". The wines are tasted several times, not just once, as you would do in at a wine cellar door, or at an in-store tasting. And if there is anything disastrously wrong with a wine, a second bottle is opened to clarify whether the problem is a bottle fault or simply a faulty wine.
When each judge has finished judging his or her lineup of wines, they sit down together and their scores for each wine are read out and compared. Any wine that any judge scored as gold medal standard, is revisited. But so are wines for which there was a widely varying discrepancy amongst the scores in order to determine if the wine was silver medal standard, bronze medal or no award. Judges talk to their fellow panel members about the characters of the wine they liked - or disliked before the final medal award is arrived at. It's not a lottery at all.
New Zealand Gold Medal Wines
Now that the Royal Easter Show Wine Awards results are out, I've recompiled the list of the number of New Zealand wines that have now won gold medals in the 2007-2008 show season - the shows for which 2007 is the current vintage. An amazing 350 wines have won gold medals, although this may be slightly revised as duplications are discovered. That's due to the full name of the wine not correctly expressed on the various results websites. But I'm calling it 350 for now, anyway.Villa Maria Estate is the leading company with a tally of 30 golds across their portfolio. They've a big portfolio, but so have other companies who enter shows. You just have to shake your head in amazement and say 'wow'.
Saint Clair Estate is the second most successful producer with 15 gold medal wining wines this season. The Saint Clair Pioneer Block 2 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2007 with 5 gold and two silver medals, is the most awarded wine of the season.
Vidal Estate is in 3rd place with 10 gold medal winning wines - and four of those are Syrah.Check out the list on Wine Show Results page, while a blog entry - linked to below, summaries the top 21 gold medal winning wines of the season.
Retailers reusing tasting notes and not disclosing the source
An Australian consumer wrote to me asking if I wrote my own tasting notes after she saw an almost identical tasting note for the same named wine but for a different vintage, in a Melbourne retailer's email earlier in the week. She wanted further endorsement that the wine was as good as they hyped and found my notes searching Google. But then she deduced that my tasting note was the original as it had been written three years before. I date all my tasting notes as it's a reference for me as well as for anyone else who wants to know how long ago a wine was tasted.The wine shop told her I must have plagiarised their notes, which of course I hadn't. She copied all their emails to me and I was able to write to the wine shop and say, "How can you write exactly the same words and then tell the customer the notes are your own?" However they didn't use all my words, as they omitted a negative comment I made about Brett (a yeast character that some people don't like).
They said they have now removed my tasting note - which is good, as it was for a 2001 vintage wine. 2001 was a warmer more typical Australian vintage than the coolest ever 2002.
What concerns me is that the retailer was
a. using a copied tasting note for a different vintage of the wine
b. telling the customer, even after being questioned, that the tasting note was from their own tasting, when a little investigation showed it clearly was not
c. totally misleading the consumerThe retailer also gave a 91/100 rating - so who knows where that came from .
The consumer told me she has lost trust in this retailer and is now looking for a new wine supplier.
There are a number of retailers in New Zealand who do actually taste the wines themselves, some of the descriptions are succinct, others are gushing and sometimes over the top, but the customers of these retailers know that the wines are genuinely tasted by the staff. And when those retailers sometimes use other writers' notes, they do disclose the source. I regard using a tasting note to impart information as fair use, so long as the source is stated and the note is not taken out of context. Most of these retailers do instore tastings too of their promotional wines, so you can try them out for yourself. Just remember, it's a snapshot in a moment of time in the wine's life ;-)
With so many start up wine retailers, many without the bricks and mortars to back up their Internet presence, I'm sure it would give their customers more trust in their wines if they disclosed the sources when including tasting notes or scores of wines that have been 'borrowed'. As a consumer I'd particularly want to know if it was a producer's notes that are being used to hype a wine - because a producer is always going to say great things about their own babies.
Wine of the Week - Canterbury Vineyards Botrytised Muller Thurgau 2007
Week ending 2 Mar 2008: A long, long time ago …. sounds like the start of a Don McLean song but it was indeed a long, long time ago …. in New Zealand …. when Muller Thurgau, or Muller T, which sounds a bit funkier for this day and age, was the grape white hope. That was, of course, before Sauvignon Blanc had been 'discovered'. [...]Wine of the Week - Bouldevines Marlborough Chardonnay 2006
Week ending 24 Feb 2008: Peaches - fresh peaches. I love them especially when they are freshly plucked right off the tree that I can see from the bedroom window. I've been lazing in bed the last few mornings and wondering who is going to get the peach at the top of the tree first -me or the pesky blackbird that has been hanging around.[...]Wine of the Week - Woollaston Burke's Bank Nelson Pinot Gris 2007
Week ending 17 Feb 2008: Another tasting of Pinot Gris wines from the 2007 vintage yet again revealed some deliciously tasty wines and reconfirmed that New Zealand Pinot Gris has come of age. Put it down to vintage, vine age, winemaker's age, whatever, but the more experience every winemaker has with his vineyard and grapes, as well as the annual climatic variations, the more he or she can refine their styles to the grapes that each harvest produces. [...]Royal Easter Show Wine Awards - NZ Gold Medal Update
26 Feb 2008: Seventy nine wines were awarded gold medals at last weekend's judging of the Royal Easter Wine Show Awards, 5.9% of the 1334 total entries. A total of 350 New Zealand wines have now won gold medals at eight New Zealand shows this 'season', with the New Zealand results from the Sydney International included, to make the results compiled from nine shows in total. [...]Royal Easter Show Wine Awards judging
24 Feb 2008: About 1300 wines were judged this weekend for the 55th annual Royal Easter Show Wine Awards - the longest running annual wine show in New Zealand. Five panels of judges (including moi) and a huge back room support crew [...]Te Koko - Outstanding Alternative Sauvignon Blanc
22 Feb 2008: Made by Marlborough's most famous wine company, Cloudy Bay Te Koko 2005 is a light gold-coloured wine with powerful aromas of tropical guava and feijoa tinged with a wild yeast funkiness and a touch of caramel oak complexity. If you are tasting blind, the aromas will have you scratching your head as to what it might be [...]Two new Montepulcianos - Morton Estate and Weeping Sands
21 Feb 2008: I remember attending a Wine New Zealand seminar in October 2003 with a topic, 'Emerging New Varieties'. The question was, "Is there market interest for new varieties? Why produce them if no-one knows about them or is going to buy them?" [...]Dining out in Marlborough - Herzog Bistro Review
20 Feb 2008: When someone asked me earlier this week for a recommendation on where to lunch in Marlborough, I only had one answer - Herzog. Herzog is touted as Marlborough's top winery destination and indeed reviews for dining at Herzog are some of the best I've ever seen. But all the reviews that I've read are for Herzog's luxury fine dining restaurant, which is only open at nights. What is not so well known is that owners Hans and Therese Herzog also run a much more casual, lunchtime bistro [...]Vintage Underway, Lindauer Cellar closes and other industry news
19 Feb 2008: The 2008 harvest is underway with the first grapes of the vintage picked in Gisborne on the 8th February [...]More Chardonnay Impressions - Trinity Hill, Cloudy Bay, Twin Islands
18 Feb 2008: A few more chardonnays were tasted with the Chicken and Peach Sauce featured with this week's Wine of the Week, which was Bouldevines Marlborough Chardonnay 2006. The wines were [...]Mother Clucking Chooks at the Wednesday Tasting
17 Feb 2008: Critter labels are all the vogue. There's something about them that people love, never mind what the wine is like. It is the same with TV adverts too. Put a cutesy animal in the ad and everybody loves it [...]What did you do for Valentine's Day?
15 Feb 2008: What did you do for Valentine's Day? A bit of a rhetoric question really. Call me a spoil sport, but we did nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary. I hate the commercialism of Valentine's Day and champagne, chocolate and red roses are all so predictable [...]Wine of the Week: Woollaston Pinot Gris 2007
11 Feb 2008: Could 2007 be the turning point for New Zealand Pinot Gris? I certainly think so. There are just so many good wines from the vintage - from every region in New Zealand [...]Gemilicious Festival Fun
9 Feb 2008: Marlborough celebrated its 25th annual wine festival today and by all reports it was a sizzling affair with 8,000 revellers enjoying the summer sun, the music the food and of course the wines from the 57 wineries at the event. I popped into the rather more sedate Kumeu Wine, Beer and Food Festival in Auckland's northwest [...]Maori is cool - so try Tohu
7 Feb 2008: Maori culture can give New Zealand a competitive edge in the tourism stakes, said a news report on the eve of Waitangi Day. A study, commissioned by Maori Development Ministry Te Puni Kokiri said there is increasing international demand for all things Maori. People are discovering the Maori edge. Maori is cool [...]Find older entries on my Blog Archive.
The most obvious connection for a Leap Year day wine is a wine with 'leap' as part of the brand name. Searching Google comes up with several Californian wines, namely Frog's Leap, Stag's Leap, Leaping Horse and Leaping Lizard. Leaping Lizard is also a West Australian wine brand, although the wines don't seem to be available here in New Zealand.
February 29th is traditionally the time for the woman to ask the man she loves to marry her - traditionally - a long time ago, because women don't need an excuse to ask men to marry them now.
So if you are one of those shy woman who wants something to seduce their man, I recommend a big gutsy, grunty red, oozing with fruit and oak and alcohol, perhaps a bit of earth and a touch of tar and even a little leathery funk. I think something with a bit of age that has toned down the youthful freshness, something like the opulent and sexy Mills Reef Elspeth Block 3 Merlot 2002 from Hawkes Bay that my other half opened the other night. Supple, sensuous and seductive, like dark rose petals strewn over a bed of velvet - check out this and other manly seductive reds on my blog entry for February 29th (tomorrow).
That's all for now.
Cheers,
Sue Courtney
Editor, wineoftheweek.com
mailto:wineoftheweek@clear.net.nz
www.wineoftheweek.com
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