Marlborough sav blanc rises to top
The wine Marlborough is known for is back on top after a Saint Clair blend took out champion sauvignon blanc at the Royal Easter Show Wine Awards.
It was Saint Clair’s Pioneer Block 20 Cash Block Sauvignon Blanc that was announced as the winner at the awards dinner on Saturday night.
Speaking before the award was announced, Saint Clair winemaker and viticulturist Hamish Clark said 2019 had been a successful year for sauvignon blanc.
‘‘Especially after 2017 and 18, they had their challenges. It was really nice to have a nice harvest with easy picking decisions and just a really nice run in, rather than putting the foot to the floor and needing to harvest everything in one gulp,’’ Clark said.
Despite being the largest wineproducing region in the country, Marlborough did not scoop a top prize at last year’s New Zealand Wine Awards.
The winner of the champion sauvignon blanc was from Nelson winery Seifried Estate which Clark said was ‘‘well deserved’’.
He said the take home from wine shows was that it does come down to who is judging them and tasting them and what their pallette and style are like.
Royal Easter Show Wine Awards director Terry Dunleavy said the judges were impressed with the high quality of entries, especially in the sauvignon blanc and chardonnay varieties.
‘‘Not only was there an increase in the number of gold medals awarded to the top sauvignon blancs, but the wines revealed greater diversity of styles, more complexity and showed stronger evidence of the flinty, minerally flavours that the variety can achieve,’’ Dunleavy said.
‘‘With chardonnay, there was this year a less heavy-handed approaching to the winemaking, allowing the variety to better express New Zealand’s natural cool climate capacity to accentuate fruit flavours and varietal characters.’’
Notably, five rose´ blends were awarded gold medals, all of which were in Marlborough, with Babydoll Rose 2019 awarded champion rose´ .
The New Zealand Winegrowers 2019 annual report showed rose´ is now the fourth largest New Zealand wine export – beating Chardonnay for the first time.