New Zealand
In what is the most exciting new wine region in the world today, Sauvignon
blanc competes on equal terms with the very best that Sancerre and Pouilly
Fume have to offer. It rarely drops to the periodical dismal depths of its
Loire counterparts in poor years; at the same time, it is significantly
cheaper. The Chardonnay and Semillon wines are also first-rate.
this country's reputation has grown quickly. The first comprehensive tasting
of New Zealand wines was in London in February 1982 cocooned inside the
High Commissioner's penthouse suite perched on top of New Zealand House.
The sun shone through its plate-glass windows and transformed a cold but
cloudless British winter's day into a warm and sunny Pacific one. I was
in New Zealand before the first drop of wine touched my lips! MN' concept
of this country's wine had previously been limited to a Germanic-style off-dry
or semi-sweet Muller-Thurgau and just two producers Cooks and Montana.
THE LIEBFRAUMILCH SYNDROME
In the mid-1970s when the "Lieb-boom" was in full swing the sharp
marketing men at Cooks and Montana quickly launched their Muller-Thurgau
wines onto Britain's Liebfraumilch based market and explained that the grape
was the same one that dominated its "favorite" wine. They also
revealed to a "Lieb-sick" wine press that it was a combination
of New Zealand's European type climate and its widespread practice of 'back-blending"
that enabled it to produce wines of distinctly Germanic style. Back blending,
we were told, is synonymous with the addition of sussreserve, blending back
unfermented grape juice into a finished, fully-fermented, dry wine. This
adds sugar, but the sweetness is disguised by the juice's freshness and
high acidity, and is more readily perceived as tanginess and grapeyness,
particularly, if the consumer is told this by the label. The sussreserve
process is especially important in the production of German wines.