Wine of the Week Krug Rosé

This was a great week to be in the wine industry with all of the industry gifts that are given. I was fortunate to taste a bottle of Krug Rosé and I hope that there are better bottles of wine out there otherwise I might as well end it all now.
I am on the hunt for the best wine and it is not all about price but purely about quality.

Krug Rosé is the best wine that I have had the pleasure of tasting and other wines will need to be 10/10 to top it.

All the traits of a great wine were evident. Great delicacy good acid levels and solid clean fruit. This is the wine of Kings and will give anybody, who has the fortune to drink it, a night of sheer pleasure.

It is light pink almost salmon in colour with beautifully fine bubbles (beads) that excite the mouth without detracting from the experience or overwhelming the palate.
There are hints of strawberries, and other red fruit. There are other aromas that intrigue the senses like warm bread and brioche, with a light touch of yeast.

This wine was faultless and almost too perfect!

The Wine Vault

The Wine Vaults Top 10 New Zealand Wines for 2008.

Here are, what I consider, the top wines for 2008 in what has been a very interesting year in the wine industry.
With the over production of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in 2007 and even more in with the 2008 vintage it is not a year to remember positively for Sauvignon Blanc fans.

Prophets Rock Pinot Noir 2006 was a great discovery. The wine is all about balance and Harmony with its' textural body and good mineral qualities balanced with ripe fruit and a well proportioned use of oak. RRP $39. 18.5/20 Wine Vault points (WVP)

Rippon Pinot Noir 2006 has returned to form. This wine is from some of the oldest vines in Central Otago and it shows in the delicacy of the wine.
This wine show beautiful depth of character and is in complete balance with a very fine red fruit and just slightly savoury nose followed by a layered fruit and forest floor palate. When one finally reaches the back palate you are faced with good minerality and structure. In all this wine is one of the finest Pinot Noirs that New Zealand crafts. RRP $58. 19/20 WVP

Awaroa Stell Organic Chardonnay 2007. The fruit for this wine is sourced from the Stell vineyard in Hawke's Bay. The vineyard Fruit is organically grown and then shipped to Waiheke Island for fermenting.
The wine has a lovely citrus fruit nose with hints of butter and oak but not overly dominant. The oak on the palate is restrained and the Butter from Malo is also noticeable but does not dominate the wine. The citrus fruit and hazelnut aromas are what make this wine interesting and the lively but well balanced palate are also a point of interest. RRP $20. 18/20 WVP

Walnut Block Sauvignon Blanc 2008. Now I am not one for early drinking Sauvignon Blanc but there have been two that have caught my attention. This wine is the first that I tasted from the 2008 vintage and I was very surprised at the quality in this very average vintage.
Walnut Block have made a very textural wine with good fruit and lovely, lively acidity and some creamy minerality. RRP $22. 17.5/20 WVP

Discovery Point Sauvignon Blanc 2008. This wine is also very well layered. This was the same experience that was enjoyed with the Walnut Block 08.
There are also some other striking similarities between these two wines with regards to the creaminess, acidity, and fruit quality. RRP $22.  18/20 WVP

Craggy Range Cape Kidnappers Chardonnay 2007. This Chabliesque wine is a beautiful accompaniment  to seafood and roast chicken dishes. There are layers of fruit and minerals that make it a real pleasure to drink.
The searing minerality is like sucking on an upmarket river stone and the fruit is reminiscent of a good French market. All in all this wine is great value for money at RRP $26.00.  19/20 WVP

Hatton Estate EC2 Chardonnay 2007. This wine is clean with a beautiful fragrance and a certain elegance on the palate. You do not get too much fruit, it is not overly scented, and nor is it overly oaked. In fact what you do get is a well balanced wine that has a lot of appeal.
There are hints of citrus fruit on the nose along with a dash of stonefruit. Then there is the palate! A crisp apple with some acid but not overly acidic. It as a good finish and should go well with Shellfish and chicken. RRP $24.99. 17.5/20 WVP

Glazebrook Hawke's Bay Syrah 2006. This is spicy and fruity with restrained use of oak that allows all of the components of the wine to shine through.
The Fruit is ripe and plentiful but it is within context of the rest of the wine. There is a good spicy spine and reasonable amount of tannin to support the fruit. I would consider cellaring this wine for the next 5 years to see it at its best. RRP $26. 17.5/20 WVP

Johanneshof Pinot Gris 2008. This is my least favourite NZ wine style. I think in short it is because of vine age and our lack of respect for the grape. This wine is different due, in part, to the European owners and wine makers.
They have made a classic in this wine with beautiful balance and acid. There is no oak influence to detract from the purity of the fruit. It is fermented dry and offers a great accompaniment to seafood and maybe some Asian dishes. RRP $29. 18/20 WVP.

Black Estate 2004 Pinot Noir. Texture, balance, and pure drinkability are what this wine offers the imbiber. There is plenty of fruit, plenty of structure, and plenty of depth without being to sterile the wine still has a rough edge. RRP $45. 18/20 WVP.

Alana Estate Wines

We recently flew down to Alana Estate winery in Martinborough for the concert of John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow.

On arrival we were entertained with wines from Bollinger and Laurent-Perrier. These Champagnes are some of the best to come out of the region and I especially like the austere nature of the youthful RD 1995 by Bollinger. This wine has many exciting years ahead of it in the bottle.

We then toured the vineyard and winery for the next 2 hours and were given a detailed explanation of all aspects of Alana Estate past, present, and future.

The wines that are being made now are some of the best that Martinborough can offer. The Pinot Noir impresses me a great deal with rip fruit and good levels of acid offset by good use of oak.

The oak in these wines is not there to dominate but compliment and it manages to do it perfectly. There are very beautiful aspects to all of the different clones in the vineyard and when combined seem to make fantastic Pinot Noir. You get more savoury components from Martinborough than Central Otago and less of the over blown ripe fruit. The wines are clean without being too clinical.

The vineyards are carefully maintained by a dedicated team and the winery was spotless all adding to the nature of the business here at Alana. The winemaker took time out of his day to entertain us and the marketing manager made sure the stay was first class.

Throughout the day we managed to taste our way through most of the wines made here and also some back vintages where we were able to see some great and exciting developments in wine making.

On another note, John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow were fantastic and really made the day.

Summer has Finally Arrived!

Well with the onset of Summer the rosé wine has started to appear on the shelves. It wasn't that long ago that New Zealand Produced only a handful of rosé wines, and most of those were very mediocre to say the least.

Now, I can report, there some fantastic examples to be found and most producers are doing one in many different styles, and from all regions.

The three main areas for rosé are production are Hawke's Bay, Marlborough, and Central Otago. The wines from Hawke's Bay tend to be made from Bordeaux varietal's, whereas the wines from Central tend to be made from Pinot Noir.

Marlborough on the other hand makes rosé from everything, as it has such diverse plantings most of most common varietal's. The wines made from Merlot, Syrah, or Cabernet Franc are generally on the dry side and those made from Pinot Noir on the sweeter end of the spectrum.

My favourites from the 2008 NZ vintage are Odyssey, Hatton Estate, La Strada, and Ata Rangi.
The wine from Odyssey shows great colour with good depth of character with plum and red current being the most obvious fruit.
There is a good amount of dryness to this wine that makes it ideal for salads and fruit dessert.

Hatton Estate was beautifully crisp and dry with an abundance of fruit and very textural on the palate and good length.

La Strada is surprisingly from Merlot rather than Pinot Noir, as one would expect from such a great producer. There is great texture associated with this wine and good purity fruit and firm and dry.

The Ata Rangi is beautifully balanced with nothing other than fruit and acid that holds this wine together perfectly. This wine is great with seafood and salads and should definitely be a wine for the summer BBQ.

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Corks and Screwcaps, the Real Reason!

This is a subject that polarises people within the industry and leaves the customer feeling ill at ease with not knowing who is right.

Cork taint was a problem, no one can deny that, but were the stats correct?

Of all of the wine I have tasted I have only had 2 significantly corked wines. This leads me to suppose that the stats are slightly squewed to promote an alternative closure, that only saves the industry thosands of dollars but leaves the customer without the romance of history and opening a bottle of wine and not an industrial product like fizzy cola.

An average cork costs, in New Zealand, $1.50 when you compare the cost of a screwcap at $0.15c there are sums that don't need to much calculation to work out the wineries are saving a lot of money. I feel that it is at the expense of quality wine.

Yeah sure you can find all of the statistics to support screwcaps if you look hard enough, or you are a proponent of the Stelvin closure. The cork offers a more natural experience where what is in the bottle somehow reflects the season/vintage from which that wine was made.

The shear process of making aluminium stelvin closures is environmentally disaterous. One of the significant environmental consequences of aluminium production is the emission of perfluorcarbons (PFCs), powerful greenhouse gases which remain permanently in the atmosphere once released.

Harvesting Cork is a very natural process, where the bark of Quercus Suber the cork oak tree is taken every nine years and made into many items including that of cork closures for wine.

Having tried many of the same wines under both closures, I know what I prefer. If you want to drink wine that doesn't age properly and doesn't represent anything except generic juice then by all means drink wine under screwcap but don't inflict that industrial dross on the rest of us!

under screwcap but don't inflict that industrial dross on the rest of us!

The Wine Vault

Wines Tasted This Week.

Champagne Bruno Paillard $89.99 and Deval-Leroy 1996 $89.99.

The Champagne from Bruno Paillard was extraordinary with beautiful floral and biscotti aromas on the nose with hints of citrus and cream. On tasting the wine one was left with impression that it was a vintage wine rather than a Non-Vintage. It displayed elegance that most well made vintage Champagnes exude.

The subtle fruit was beautifully layered with grapefruit, lemon, and pineapple. There was a delightful yeasty character that when added to the biscotti and fruit made for a very pleasurable experience.

In my humble opinion this is probably the best Non-Vintage Champagne that is available to the good folk of New Zealand.

The Deval-Leroy 1996 (one of the best vintages for Champagne) lacked some of the finesse of the Bruno Paillard. The bead was more coarse and the delicate aromas were much more one dimensional and clumsy.

The quality of the wine was questionable given the year. There were some very good points to this wine but too many negatives when compared with the Non-Vintage wine we had just tasted.

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Hatton Estate 'Tahi' Verticle Tasting.

We attended a verticle tasting of Hatton Estates 'Tahi' meaning one in Maori at Rocco this week.

The verticle tasting included wines from 1998 through to 2006, with a few exceptions of 1999 and 2001. This was due to poor fruit quality for the Tahi and was then put inot the reserve wine.

The 1998 was very European in style with lots of layers and was a great example of New Zealand wine being able to age well.

The 2000 Tahi changed in style to that of an Australian wanna be. Deep dark fruit and slightly over extracted and was drinking much better than the '98 but only a few years left and so was propbably best to drink this wine ASAP.

We then moved onto the 2001 which also showed good fruit concentration but lacked charm and was slightly green on the nose and stalky on the palate.

The 2002 was ripe and delicious but needed to be drunk reasonably soon and the 2003 was of the same ilk.

We then moved to 2004 where the wines started to reflect the qualities of the 1998. It was the 2004 vintage where the winemaker changed to that of a young Frenchman with obvious talent and an eye for detail.

The 2005 was the only wine which did not include Merlot felt out of place and slightly uptight compared to the rest of the wines but was of good quality and ripeness of fruit.

The final 2006 was very ripe and had started to develope well and is soon to be bottled and should start drinking well from 2010 onwards.

The evening was a great sucess and the wines reflected this and wouldn't look too far out a place against the best Bordeaux blends that this country makes.  

Wines Tasted this Week

This week I have tasted numerous 2008 Sauvignon Blancs that are substandard. Mostly the wines tend to be coming from Marlborough and are dilute and lack any real complexity or pleasure.

I hope that this trend doesn't persist as it will damage New Zealands reputation for great Sauvignon Blanc and probably have a knock on effect for other varietals, such as Pinot Noir.

New Zealand wine is expensive worldwide and purchasers are fickle and when they taste poor quality wine from Marlborough then they will move to another country or region.

Of course there are some very smart 2008 Sauvignon Blancs but probably less than there are bad from this vintage.

Some of the wines to look out for are Walnut Block, Astrolabe, and Discovery Point. Try these and you won't be disappointed.