Kiwi Sav Blanc Well Watered
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday July 25, 2000
This year's vintage in Marlborough, home of New Zealand's world-famous sauvignon blanc, has been badly hit by wet weather.
Early projections are that production is 30 per cent down on normal quantities. Just how that will affect availability and prices of New Zealand's most famous wine remains to be seen.
But it might well be a case of grabbing good 1999 New Zealand sav blanc while you can.
A newcomer to the Australian market is a super-premium wine from one of New Zealand's oldest and best known wineries.
Corbans Cottage Block 1999 Marl-borough Sauvignon Blanc is a classic example of the Marlborough style - a powerful, complex wine with the characteristic fusion of fresh, tropical fruit flavours with dry grassiness.
New Zealand sauvignon blanc is like no other. While there are plenty of delicious examples of the variety produced in Australia, our wines generally don't have that dry, almost flinty edge that those produced from the low-yielding vines of Marl-borough possess.
It's that character that makes Marlborough sauvignon blanc so highly prized, and why Corbans can charge $33 a bottle for this wine.
The company has also released in Australia a Cottage Block series red - Corbans Cottage Block 1998 Hawkes Bay Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc/Merlot.
That's quite a mouthful, and so is the wine - a predominantly cabernet sauvignon blend that's big on flavour, with an impressive elegance. It, too, retails at about $33.
Victoria's Blue Pyrenees Estate has come up with a great tribute to one of the major figures in the nation's wine industry, Colin Richardson.
Appropriately enough it's a wine, named in honour of the leading industry figure, wine company executive, wine educator and show judge.
Richardson died last year, but his name will live on through Blue Pyrenees Estate 1997 The Richardson Merlot, and through a foundation named in his honour, which will specialise in helping young people train in the wine and hospitality industry. The foundation will benefit from the proceeds of every sale of The Richardson.
Blue Pyrenees managing director Mike Cutrupi explained that his company wanted to honour a man who had had a profound impact on the wine industry in Australia.
``Our winemakers are always on the lookout for exceptional batches of fruit they can process separately and perhaps release as a special wine," he said.
``This was the case during the 1997 vintage with a particular batch of merlot from a couple of low-yielding, dry land blocks of vines more than 20 years old.
``I know that Colin had tasted the resultant wine in its infancy and thought that it had the potential to develop into a great Australian red.
``When Colin died it was an obvious choice as a memorial to a prodigious, extremely rich life, and I'm sure that he would very much have enjoyed drinking The Richardson as a more mature red."
No doubt he would. It is a very classy wine (as it should be at about $60 a bottle) - rich and concentrated, with the appealing softness of a 100 per cent merlot. This is very much a special occasion wine, and it won't be easy to find.
But it will be worth the search.
- NICK HARTGERINK
© 2000 Illawarra Mercury
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