Wine and Spirit

Now planted across much of the wine-producing world, sauvignon blanc is a green-skinned grape that probably has its origins in the Bordeaux region of France.

The word sauvignon, which derives from 'sauvage' (wild in French), is a reflection of the fact that wine made from this variety can exhibit a green, herbal character which could be described as 'wild'.

Sauvignon blanc is one of the parents of cabernet sauvignon (the other parent being cabernet franc).

This white varietal is one of the most versatile of grapes.

From dry, tart, mouth-puckering to rich, creamy, and oaky and even to dessert wines, there is a sauvignon blanc for every taste and budget.

Sauvignon blanc's unique methoxypyrazines (flavour compounds) manifest themselves in grassy, herbaceous, even cat-pee-like aromas at their most pungent.

The riper the grape, the more the flavours move into the melon/tree fruit spectrum.

The wines at their best are zesty, zingy, vibrant, though quite often softened with toasty oak.

Sauvignon blanc was not considered a great wine until Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé became all the rage in Paris in the 1960s.

Classic French examples are smoky, flinty Pouilly-Fumé ans Sancerre from chalky soils in the Loire Valley, and white Bordeaux.

Friuli in Italy and Styria in Austria also are sources of lean, racy styles.

In the New World, California, Chile, and South Africa are turning out an impressive range in all styles and price points as well, following the tremendous success of the well-priced, varietally expressive New Zealand versions, of which Cloudy Bay, produced in the Marlborough region, is thought to be one of the best.

The classic New Zealand and South African versions are typically modeled after the fresh, unoaked Loire and Bordeaux styles.

In California until the 1970s, sauvignon blanc was usually made as a nondescript semi-sweet wine until winemaker Robert Mondavi made a dry varietal he named Fumé Blanc (a reference to Pouilly-Fumé, considered 'smokier' and richer than Sancerre) to distinguish it.

Since then, Fumé Blanc has taken on steam as a marketing term applicable to both dry, crisp style as well as a heavier, oakier style, depending on the whim of the winery.

Mondavi's version, modeled after the Loire Valley's racy Pouilly-Fumé, has been, for the past several decades, California's finest sauvignon blanc.

Robert Mondavi's Fumé-Blanc Reserve, 'To Kalon Vineyard, I-Block', Napa Valley, a decadenttly rich, creamy, toasty, and full-bodied wine, comes from vines more than 50 years old, but their future lies in the hands of the Mondavi company's new corporate owner.

Dry Creek Vineyards has 30-years-old vines at its estate in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County.

- grassy

- herbaceous

- pungent

- melon

- tree fruit

- zesty

- from light and crisp to full and oaky

This outstanding Merlot-driven red showcases how well the variety performs in Hawke's Bay.

Given added structure by smaller amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, its nose offers an exquisite combination of dark ripe fruits, dried herbs, fruitcake and beefsteak.

Seamless in the mouth, it shows effortless poise across the succulent palate, finishing with beautifully balanced fine tannins.

A wine to serve with sophisticated beef dish, perhaps a fillet with a rich sauce chasseur.

Can be cellared for couple of years.

NZ$ 20.

This ripely scented wine has melon and pineapple fruit flavours entwined with vibrant oak in a tightly structured palate with good balance and quite-a-long intensity.

At its best age, don't cellar it if not necessary.

For NZ$ 28.

This aromatic white variety from Mendoza, Argentina is certainly turning some heads.

Spice and floral on the nose, rose and lilly - like a dream.

Easy drinking aromatic white with citrus, lychee on the palate.

Well balanced with medium aftertaste.

The only thing that was a bit disappointing for me: using plastic cork...

For NZ$ 18.

A complex array of sweet berry fruit with hints of cloves and spice on the nose.

In the last 50 years or so, plantings in Australia and North America have given this grape a very high profile.

Thanks in part to the wine's enormous popularity, producers in every corner of the globe are jumping on the chardonnay bandwagon.

Chardonnay can taste from light, crisp, and tart to full-bodied, opulent, and ripe.

One common denominator in the winemaking process is malolactic fermentation, the conversion of tart malic acid to soft lactic acid.

Many winemakers employ this technique to achieve this popular buttery characteristic.

Ripening also allows the various flavour components of the grape to develop.

Most experts agree that the ultimate expression of chardonnay's potential is in Burgundy, France, where the region, not grape type, gives the wine its name.

White Burgundy ranges from a light, crisp Mácon, to a steely, direct Chablis, to a nutty Meursault, and on to a very rich, layered, and complex Montrachet.

In Champagne, blanc de blancs champagne, also made with chardonnay, is breathtaking in its purity,, delicacy, and creaminess.

More a type of wine than a vine variety (with some definite exceptions), chardonnay is made in every imaginable style.

Here are a few examples of how chardonnay manifests itself in different wine regions of the world:

Adelaide Hills:

High natural acidity combined with ripe fruit make a typical, comparatively ripe Australian wine with long aging potential.

Carneros:

The mists of the San Francisco Bay moderate what would otherwise be a hot climate, making for well-structured wines that still show some generosity of fruit.

Chablis:

The steely table wines of this cool region have a firm acidity that allows them to develop into some of the longest-living whites available.

Champagne:

In this cool region of France, the grape makes acidic and delicate base wine for the greatest sparkling wines of the world.

Hunter Valley:

One of the warmest regions of Australia produces big chardonnays with a typical 'peaches-and-cream' character.

Languedoc:

In southern France, the chardonnay grape produces melon and butter characters that reflect Burgundy without its great structural balance and intensity.

Marlborough:

In this dry region of New Zealand, chardonnay produces wines that may echo some of the Australian fruit styles, but with an extra vein of acidity.

Meursault:

In the Cote d'Or, the heartland of Burgundy, grape produces buttery, nutty wines with a streak of acidity.

Napa Valley:

Just 30 kms north of Carneros, California, chardonnay becomes full, ripe, and generous, but without the tautness of the wines from farther south.

- citrus

- apple

- pear

- tropical

- buttery

- creamy

- nutty

- steely

- minerally

- oaky

Grenache is the fourth most planted grape variety in the world, and the most planted in Spain, where it is known as garnacha.

Early to bud and late to ripen, grenache is notable in sunny climates for producing large crops fairly easily and making straightforward wines of high alcohol and pleasing strawberry fruit.

When producers reduce the crop load, the remaining bunches are able to produce wines greater character.

In this case, or where the vines are old (up to 50 years and more), grenache has the potential to produce very high-quality wines.

In Spain, garnacha plays a role in Rioja, rounding out the tempranillo.

It is blended sometimes with international varietal cabernet sauvignon in the region of Priorato, but the many old-vine plantings of garnacha there are now being cherished and recognized for their worth.

Most consider the wines from these old-vine Priorato plantings, such as Alvaro Placios L'Ermita and Finca Dofi, the ultimate expression of the tremendous potential of this varietal.

Like many other 'workhorse' grapes, grenache produces superb results when treated with quality as the goal.

In Navarra, garnacha is often bottled as an excellent-value single varietal, especially as rosado (rosé).

In general, the Navarra rosés are the best deal on the market, combining the sun-drenched fruitiness and richness of Spain with a lively, lemony tang.

In France, grenache is planted all over the southern Rhóne.

It adds palate richness and strawberry notes, if not complexity, to the most significant wine in the region, Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

Apart from grenache, appelation regulations allow up to 12 other grape varietals for Chateauneuf.

Grenache typically makes up one-third or more of the blend, but one producer, Chateau Rayas, uses 100 percent grenache for its version.

Grenache is also responsible for the high-volume Cotes du Rhone wines offered in every bistro in Paris, both in the red and rosé versions.

Further south in France, grenache makes luscious, rich, fortified wines in Maury and Banyuls, part of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the ubiquitous and increasingly expensive rosé de Provence.

Australia specializes in GSMs, grenache blended with syrah and mourvédre, the latter being the grape of Provence's Bandol wine.

Proportions vary, but a typical GSM contains about one-third of each grape.

These Rhone-style blends are very attractively priced and often bear the multi-regional appelation 'Southern Australia'.

Grenache is also bottled on its own in the Barossa Valley, South Australia.

The best Australian single-varietal versions are deeply coloured and brooding.

In the USA, grenache production is focused on California.

The state's winemakers turn out a variety of styles, the grape is most often used for blending in Rhone-style wines in several regions.

Since the 1850s, it has been planted for everyday table wine in the Central Valley.

- soft

- velvety

- high alcohol, low acid

- ripe strawberries

- red or rosé

I was at a wine auction last Friday.

Bought some really interesting wines but one of them seemed even more interesting than the others.

A grenache (garnacha) from Clare Valley (Australia) from 1995.

I'm a big fan of spanish style varieties (especially tempranillo), so I could hardly wait to taste this one.

For many years grenache has been seen as a nasty word, yet most of the winemakers would agree that along with the more famous shiraz, it has been a workhorse variety of Australia.

In this the fruit was picked ripe, at optimum flavour levels, and the wine was matured for a short time in a mixture of new, two and three year old American oak barrels.

Buying a 15 year-old wine is always some kind of lottery (you never know where it was stored during the years).

I was more than lucky this time.

This one has a ruby colour with orange pale.

Sweet raspberry and vanilla on the nose.

A very complex, full-bodied wine with low acid and high tannin, quite a long aftertaste.

Superb. A brilliant example from Clare Valley.

Cabernet sauvignon is planted just about everywhere, and sits next to its white counterpart, chardonnay, on the throne of the modern wine grape world.

It produces some of the world's longest-lived reds.

Bordeaux is its heartland, but upstarts in Napa Valley (California), Tuscany, and South Australia are staking a claim.

As a point of reference, cabernet sauvignon is the offspring of sauvignon blanc and cabernet franc.

In general, cabernet sauvignon is medium to full in body, and has blackcurrant fruit and sometimes a green bell pepper character, plus leather and earth in Bordeaux and riper, sweeter fruit and heavy oak in the New World.

Through cabernet sauvignon we can clearly see a reflection of origin, vintage, and especially, winemaking techniques, most notably those that increase concentration, alcohol, and oak influence.

Just as chardonnay loses its identity through heavy-handed winemaking, so too does cabernet sauvignon.

The higher the alcohol, more concentrated the wine, and more lavishly oaked it is, the harder it is to tell where the wine is from, let alone what grape has been used.

In Tuscany, for example, cabernet sauvignon is blended with the more delicate sangiovese, which is quite easily overwhelmed by it.

Sangiovese does make a more delicate wine with paler colour than cabernet sauvignon, and therefore is unjustly written off as 'light and pale'.

By adding cabernet sauvignon, producers have an easier time selling the wine in the current marketplace.

The patriarch of Bordeaux, even though it is out planted by merlot there, cabernet sauvignon dominates the blended reds of the Médoc on the left bank, as well as the Graves south of the city of Bordeaux.

In Pauillac, the wines have a characteristic pencil-shaving/graphite note and very fine tannins.

In Graves, the wines tend to have a dusty, tarry quality.

Cabernet sauvignon has been cultivated in the northern part of Italy for centuries, especially in the Veneto, predating the first plantings in Bordeaux.

Napa Valley and South Australia are other important areas of productions.

Premium South Australia cabernet sauvignons are the deepest, blackest, chewiest, ripest, and most powerful in the world.

While impressive, this kind of power only goes far at the dinner table as these wines tend to overwhelm and tire the palate rather than refreshing it. They also overwhelm the food.

Californian winemakers tend to follow their Australian counterparts.

Cabernet sauvignon is widely planted in South America.

In Chile, the wines are reliable, often elegant.

In Argentina, they represent excellent value and range from a pure, unoaked varietal expression to concentrated, lavishly oaky styles.

A new style of fruit-forward but unoaked cabernet sauvignon is cropping up in California and Australia in the inexpensive, everyday-drinking price range.

Many of them are candied like a zinfandel and have little varietal character or originality.

- blackcurrant

- green bell pepper

- violet

- mint

- leather

- earth

- vanillin