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The Oxford Times Wine ClubDiversity of New Zealand wines
While everyone was wrapped up in their thermals and warming the mulled wine this December past, yours truly was having an absolutely fantastic time in sunny New Zealand.
You would be right in thinking that there wasn't a winter woolly in sight but quite wrong if you thought I spent almost four weeks drinking nothing but sauvignon blanc.
This is a country whose wines are as diverse as its landscape. Before I get too much further let me make it clear that I'm all for New Zealand sauvignon but drinking nothing but that is rather like going to Paris and visiting only the Eiffel Tower.
There are more than 25 different grape varieties planted in New Zealand and while sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, chardonnay, merlot and riesling are the most widely grown, there are others to be found.
Have you, for instance, considered viognier? Syrah? A NZ Bordeaux blend? Well, if you haven't, perhaps it's time you thought about broadening your horizons.
It's easy for me to say; it wasn't so long ago that I was still wearing blinkers when it came to truly understanding the variety that's increasingly on offer.
I made a substantial step forward at last year's London Wine Trade Fair when I had my eyes opened and my taste-buds excited by the fantastic wines of Te Mata.
This iconic winery is New Zealand's oldest and has some 300 acres of vineyards in Hawke's Bay. This North Island region is the country's second largest and is centred on Hastings.
An opportunity to visit this beautiful estate and to taste their wines (again!) was one of the highlights of my trip.
Te Mata is special for several reasons. The first is John Buck - a man who has been making, judging and selling wines for over four decades.
He is widely acknowledged as an enormously gifted wine professional, being once described as "a great visionary . . . who set out in the late 1970s to make great red wine . . . and did it".
Secondly, we all know that the sites that a vineyard owns are fundamental.
That Te Mata was among the first has given them a head start in securing some of the very best plots in Hawke's Bay.
The third reason is Te Mata's ability to maintain a standard throughout their range. They may be world famous for their premium, claret-like Coleraine' but it is the ultimate pleasure when the same standards are evident in every single wine produced.
I am absolutely delighted that the Oxford Times Wine Club case this week includes two of the wines from this estate.
The Te Mata team were the first in New Zealand to make a 100 per cent viognier back in 1996 and they have not been tardy in getting to grips with this less than easy variety.
After pressing, the greater percentage of the grapes is fermented in oak barrels with the remainder being put into stainless-steel tanks. The resulting wine is aged on the lees before being bottled some eight months later.
This delivers a wine of incredible richness and intensity of flavour. It's nutty, floral and full of orchard fruit. What I like most about this wine though is that it retains a real freshness and vigour.
The red is the Woodthorpe Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon and one of the highest-scoring wines of my trip.
The grapes are planted on elevated terraces bordering the river Tutaekuri.
Here they have the dual benefit of excellent sun exposure and free-draining soil. The wine is matured for 16 months in French oak barrels, during which time the fruit combines beautifully with the oak tannins.
What's so undeniably loveable is that it has structure without harshness, it has generous fruit yet isn't heavy. It's fresh on the palate and long in flavour. In short, it's a delight.
It is, as many of you know, one of my enduring nightmares that I will never, ever be able to taste all the world's wines before my time is up. For that very reason I keep my wine-rack varied and rarely buy in multiple bottles. For Te Mata I make an exception.
Click here for The Oxford Times Wine Club offers.
3:15pm Friday 22nd February 2008
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