NEW ZEALAND SAUVIGNON BLANC
New Zealand Sauv Blanc is one of the hottest regional wines to hit the mainstream wine market since California Cabernet or Australian Shiraz. Sauvignon Blanc’s home is in France, it’s grown all over the country but namely the Loire Valley in areas like Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé, as well as Bordeaux. But in recent years Sauvignon Blanc become synonymous with New Zealand, the Marlborough region in particular. The big flavours of grapefruit, gooseberries, fresh cut grass, and even some funkier cat pee notes stood out as big new flavours unique to New Zealand and its popularity took off from there. Even though it’s one of the newest wine growing regions for Sauvignon Blanc, to many it’s become the reference point. Marlborough must easily be the most famous Sauvignon Blanc region in the world, even though its one of the newest.
It was made famous by wineries like Cloudy Bay, Villa Maria, Kim Crawford, etc in the late 1990s. These producers were smaller boutique wineries at the time but have since grown to become some of the largest volume producers in the world. I frequently get asked for New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs other than the big names always available at the LCBO, and why so many of them have changed over the years. And it’s the age-old story of a small producer becoming famous and getting bought out by a big corporation looking to exponentially scale up massive production on the name and reputation of the original winery. And the quality inevitably goes down when volume increases that much. Then those wineries begin to look pretty different than they did originally. Things became more mechanized and moved from hand harvesting to machine harvesting, started buying cheaper grapes to meet demand and maximize profits, etc. As this was happening to Marlborough Sauv Blanc, the style changed a bit too. Many of those big wineries purposely let the grapes ripen too long to try produce extra big flavours out of them (think California Chardonnay going to the max ripeness and aged in too much oak in the 90’s). But over-ripeness leads to imbalance, so they need to add back a lot of tartaric acid to balance out the wines which can then make them taste more aggressive. On top of that, specific laboratory yeast strains were developed to enhance the grassy and grapefruit character of the wines. Long story short, a lot of these wines became ostentatious caricatures of themselves. People had got hooked on but often recall that “they aren’t as good as they used to be.” And they’re probably right, and this industrialization of their mainstream industry were some of the reasons for it. A lot of small Marlborough winemakers saw this coming and were worried that their craft industry was going to have a similar problem as happened with Australian Shiraz. When people started to get tired of how commercial and over-the-top so much of its style had become it resulted in a market crash of Australian wine.
And that’s not to speak ill of all NZ Sauv Blanc at all, not even close! New Zealand makes some of the greatest wines in the world. It’s just that a few major brands nearly monopolize the international market and don’t necessarily do it justice anymore. New Zealand Sauv Blanc has so many die hard fans who still love it all, but there’s a lot that wish it was like the good old days before the big companies took over. And sadly the retail market is mostly stocked with all those usual suspects like Oyster Bay, Kim Crawford, etc. But there are tons of amazing New Zealand wines that are the real deal brought into consignment by all kinds of private agencies and taste like New Zealand Sauv Blanc used to. So by popular demand, this week we’re going to look at New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. And here are four fantastic boutique Marlborough Sauvs that you can’t go wrong with.
Campbell Kind Wines Sauv Blanc by Steve Smith and Craggy Range Sauv Blanc.
CAMPBELL KIND WINES, ‘STEVE SMITH’ SAUVIGNON BLANC, MARLBOROUGH 2019 | $22.99 x12
This is a special small batch wine made for the carbon neutral wine project ‘Campbell Kind Wines’. Click here for a full rundown on this pioneering green initiative by former Lifford Wine owner Steven Campbell. To get a great New Zealand Sauv Blanc as part of the Campbell Kind Wines portfolio, Steven partnered with Steve Smith, New Zealand’s first Master of Wine and the world’s first viticulturist Master of Wine. Smith shot to international fame as the winemaker for Villa Maria back in the late 80’s to late 90’s as New Zealand was just coming onto the scene, before he left to help build and direct the now super famous Craggy Range winery. And he’s since left Craggy and now owns his own winery called Smith & Sheth along with Pyramid Valley. Steve was instrumental with his advice given to Steven in starting Campbell Kind Wine and offered to produce a top Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc for him. This Sauvy (as they call it) is classic pure Marlborough: gooseberries, grapefruit, mowed lawn, intense minerality, and crisp acidity. And it comes hand-picked from vines over 30 years old, which would be some of the oldest vines in Marlborough, producing some of the most complex Sauv Blanc. Essentially this is a brand new label made for a very green initiative, from old vines, by one of the country’s masters, for a very reasonable price. A no-brainer to try for any NZ SB fan! Read more about it on this link below:
CRAGGY RANGE, SAUVIGNON BLANC, MARLBOROUGH 2018 | $33.99 x12
Craggy Range winery in the shadow of the Te Mata peaks in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.
If you’re a big Sauv Blanc fan, it would be fun to compare the previous Steve Smith for Campbell Kind Wines with this Craggy Range Sauv Blanc because Steve helped build Craggy Range and was the head winemaker from the beginning and helped make it one of the most famous wineries in New Zealand. While he’s been gone now for several years, his style influenced the entire profile of the winery and they remain some of the most sought after. The Craggy Range winery is in the Hawkes Bay region of the north island where they are more famous for big reds like Bordeaux blends and northern Rhone-like Syrahs, but they own vineyards all over New Zealand, including Marlborough. It was founded by Terry Peabody, an Australian billionaire who wanted a genuine long-term legacy for his family and sought out the best place in the world to start a top winery. He didn’t want to buy one that already existed, he wanted to build one from scratch. And once he settled on New Zealand being that place, he then he found the best guy to work with and help him build one, Steve Smith. Peabody then put a 1000 year trust on the winery and vineyards so that it could never be sold. He didn’t want it to ever become that mass commercialized winery, it was meant to be a boutique family legacy forever, not a cash cow for future generations of his family. That’s a pretty serious commitment to long-term quality. And nearly ever since they started the accolades and awards have rolled in. Click here for more on their story. But the bottom line on Craggy Range is a no expense spared facility on top terroir, coupled with top talent, resulting in crazy delicious wines. Click here for some more details and tasting notes.
STAETE LANDT, SAUVIGNON BLANC, MARLBOROUGH 2018 | $24.99 x12
Abel Tasman’s surprisingly accurate first mapping of the “Staete Landt” aka New Zealand coastline.
Staete Landt is the opposite story of Craggy Range. No billionaires, no Masters of Wine, no 1000 year land trusts, but lots and lots of passion. So much passion that Ruud Maasdam, left his management job at a Dutch tech company where he made a bit of money in the 90’s and then decided to purchase a plot of land on Marlborough’s ‘Golden Mile’ and moved his young family there to start a new life as winemakers. The property was still an orchard when he bought it, they ripped out the trees and planted Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay. It’s only one single vineyard for their whole operation with everything closely attended by hand. They are so detail oriented that a couple years after they planted the vineyard, they ripped most of it up and planted the rows in a slightly different direction because it wasn’t quite perfect with the wine currents. OMG. On top of all this, they are certified sustainable which in NZ goes beyond only farming organically and takes into account employees, animals, waste, water, and climate change issues. For my entire career this has been an insanely popular restaurant wine. The Staete Landt estate Sauvignon Blanc which he named ‘Annabel’ for his daughter has been a benchmark for NZ craft Sauvignon Blanc. It drinks more like French Sauv Blanc with some Kiwi influence rather than a fully NZ style. Very uniquely, this wine is aged in some old neutral oak barrels to give it some more texture and complexity. Think about how Chablis doesn’t taste like oak at all, but a lot of it spends time in old oak to accentuate that mineral richness. The ‘Annabel’ is crisp and minerally while at the same time having beautifully rich texture showcasing the herbaceous and citrus notes. A must-try for any New Zealand Sauv Blanc fan! More details and tasting notes here.
Also from Staete Landt is their 2nd label Sauv Blanc called ‘Map Maker’. Their entire brand is built around the maps of Abel Tassman, New Zealand’s first explorer who was Dutch. Something that obviously resonated with Ruud and the family. “Staete Landt’ was the first colonial name given to New Zealand when Tasman first mapped its coastline. And surprisingly, by the 1990s none of it was copyrighted or trademarked, so Ruud used the font and the general map designs for his Staete Landt labels. Later when Ruud began travelling the world in support of his more expensive Staete Landt wines and saw that most of the New Zealand Sauv Blancs by-the-glass in restaurants were mostly Kim Crawford or Oyster Bay because they were the least expensive. Ruud didn’t believe these corporate wineries were representative of true New Zealand Sauv Blanc so he wanted to create a wine to directly compete at that price point…Thus began the project he called ‘Map Maker'. It kept the same theme as Staete Landt, same vineyard and production philosophy except there was no oak barrels, only stainless steel tanks for extra freshness. Whereas the Annabel drinks a little more French in style, Map Maker is classic New Zealand with plush citrus, grapefruit, mowed lawn and gooseberries. All done naturally with no over-ripening or acid additions and grown sustainably along with his other wines. Wine lovers who have always drank the bigger famous brands but are looking for a boutique alternative have always loved this…and it’s only $2 more per bottle! Click here for more details.
Also as a reminder the ordering deadline is Wednesday by noon for Friday delivery to Ottawa and Monday by noon for Wednesday delivery to Kingston. And if you’re looking for any mixed cases, we keep expanding our curated selection each week. You can find the complete list here: https://www.capitalwine.ca/features/moremixedcases