Australian Wine Selector - 2001
The Great White Hope: 
New Zealand's Sauvignon Blanc

IT'S LOVE or hate with Sauvignon Blanc and there appears to be no in between. The same can be said for style and regionality. To be good it's got to be from New Zealand or from cooler climate regions of Australia such as Adelaide Hills, The Great Southern, Padthaway and Coonawarra,

But first let's take a look at New Zealand's world famous Sauvignon Blancs from its traditional areas such as Marlborough and Hawkes Bay. Sauvignon Blanc was first planted in Marlborough by Montana in 1974, which made its first wine using this variety in 1980. Others followed and it didn't take long before the world started to sit up and take note. Well most of the world. Not surprisingly the French makers of this variety in Pouilly and Sancerre were complacent as ever and thought New Zealand was a passing fad. But, as time has proven, this is not the case and the French in particular have learnt, to their cost, that some new world producers of traditional varieties can beat them at their own game.

The major grape growing area within the Marlborough region is the Wairau Valley. The valley has a cool, maritime climate where daily maximum mean temperatures rarely exceed 24o C in the hottest months and day and night fluctuations are pronounced. The Wairau enjoys more sunlight hours than any other region of New Zealand and the maritime influence ensures relatively cool conditions during the growing season. Soils here vary with successive flooding. Realignment of the Wairau and other rivers of the valley have deposited glacial outwash, forming a level plain with deep, sedimentary soils varying from washed stone to gravel, alluvial silt and clay.

The flavour characteristics of the Marlborough region are typically, but not overstated, amounts of asparagus, capsicum and herbaceous, grassy flavours with a more tropical fruit spectrum of mango, pineapple and white pear fruit. Sauvignon Blanc from cooler wine growing regions is nearly always crisp and refreshing and displays great concentration of varietal fruit character.

In both Australia and New Zealand it can be made without oak or can be oak matured, barrel fermented or with skin contact. Malolactic fermentation is also an option and in some cases the variety is blended with a touch of Semillon. The palate length is distinct together with a balance of fruit, alcohol and acid. 

Sauvignon Blanc displays the greenest flavour of all ripe grapes, which increases as the growing season's temperature decreases and is at its greatest in fruit grown on limestone soils.

As James Halliday rightly states: "... simply made, cold-fermented, early-bottled Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc remains the benchmark, startling with its pungency, seductive with its mix of gooseberry and passionfruit, and bracing with its acidity." The mere mention of Sauvignon Blanc, whether in Sydney or London, means Marlborough.

Other regions producing Sauvignon Blanc, and there are many both in Australia and New Zealand, don't quite rate as highly as those from Marlborough.

The primary fruit characteristics differ greatly from Mariborough to Hawkes Bay. In Hawkes Bay, for example, the aroma is typically less intense in the herbaceous spectrum, offering more tropical notes such as lychee, guava and melon. The palate structure tends to be more full bodied and rounded reflecting the higher acidity and pH of a warmer viticultural region. Good examples show rich concentration of flavours rather than the overpowering herbaceous complexity evident in the early wines.

Sauvignon Blanc can benefit from spending some time in oak barrels (preferably French) such as hogsheads. Terroir plays an all-important part in Hawkes Bay. The climate here is slightly warmer than Marlborough. This allows the herbaceous characters to evolve into more tropical flavours and aromas, while not being so hot as to destroy varietal characters, which typify this variety. Being a warmer region, the ripening period is also shorter; acidity levels at harvest are typically lower. The soils differ enormously from Marlborough. The stony soils of the Wairau plains are producing outstanding wines, whereas the vineyards in Hawkes Bay planted on the gravels perform poorly. As a result varietal expression is reduced significantly on these soils, with fruit more prone to botrytis infection.

For example one winery, Sacred Hill situated in Hawkes Bay, produces its best Sauvignon Blanc from its vineyards with river silts and sands overlaying a free-draining gravel sub-soil and from sites close to the coast where a cooling sea breeze keeps day temperatures from soaring too high.

While Australia does not purport to make the world's best Sauvignon Blanc, they're not all that bad either! In fact they're extremely good but no one here will say they are better than those made from certain areas of New Zealand.

To many, the Adelaide Hills seems to have stolen the mantle here, producing perhaps better examples of Sauvignon Blanc than other equally qualified wine regions such as Padthaway, Coonawarra, Margaret River and WA's Great Southern region. Geoff Weaver from the Adelaide Hills says: "We don't age on oak, we don't age on lees, our wine has plenty of middle palate flavour with low crops and balanced flavours showing cut grass and generous ripe tropical fruit characters." These are the hallmarks of his Sauvignon Blanc.

Martin Shaw at Shaw & Smith, also in the Adelaide Hills, describes his Sauvignon Blanc as: "A riper style, with a predominance of green aromas and floral tropical herbaceous flavours.”

The vast majority of this variety made in Australia comes from the Adelaide Hills district. The soils here are brown loamy sands, clay loams together with yellow duplex soils which, as time has proven, are more than suited to making clean, crisp, herbaceous styles from this cool climate region.

The Great Southern region is another area where Sauvignon Blanc seems to have found a home. The soils here vary from very deep gravelly loams around Alkoomi, to very poor light sandy soils and laterite rock found on the Wignalls property which adds passionfruit and other tropical fruit flavours. Vines planted on light sandy soils give more herbaceous flavours. Grapes from the two different blocks add to making a wine which is clean, light in colour and body and with plenty of flavour. At the Alkoomi property the climatic difference here gives the wines a fuller flavour and more up-front fruit.

Whether it is produced here or in New Zealand, it's all a matter of personal taste, Sauvignon Blanc may have taken the world by storm as far as the Kiwis are concerned, but it's a wine variety of little importance to the Australian wine industry. I, for one, believe that the Kiwis have ridden the back of Sauvignon Blanc for far too long. It's about time they showed us - and the world - what else they can produce.

As far as Australia is concerned, Sauvignon Blanc is not going to take the country by storm but, for those who make it, there's no problem selling it. And, at the end of the day, that's what really counts!