New Zealand Top 50 wines

Quality keeps getting higher and higher every year, and so do, alas, prices for premium New Zealand wines. Part of it is due to externalities (global inflation, logistics bottlenecks) but part is probably just because the best NZ wines attract more and more demand.

In the context of the Annual New Zealand Trade Tasting in London, organized by NZ Wine Growers, a separate table was set up for the "best 50" wines selected by an independent panel of UK experts. I will focus my post on my best of the best among these.

Coal Pit Wines

Tiwha pinot noir, 2019

Old vines planted in 1994, a wine made from destemmed fruit which is given a cold soak for 4 to 6 days and then matured in barrel for 10 months, using 28% new French oak. The best wine today. RRP £40. Score 94

Hatch Mansfield, Hawke's Bay, Marlborough

Esk Valley The Terraces 2016

A blend of malbec, merlot and cab franc makes for a unique experience, a round wine with complex aromas and flavors. A bit of an investment at RRP £90 for a score of 92

Pegasus Bay, Waipara

Bel Canto Dry Riesling 2020
A floral and zesty wine by Ivan Donaldson who planted his first Pegasus vineyard in 1986. Single vineyard. Score 88

Pinot noir 2019

Made using traditional Burgundian techniques, single vineyard. RRP £36. Score 92

Aria, late picked Riesling 2020

Plump fruit still freshness come out but is balanced by a slightly sweet ending. RRP £27. Score 88

Peregrine, Central Otago

Sauvignon blanc 2020, organic

Apricot notes, quite an original interpretation of sauvignon. RRP £26. Score 91

Yealands Estates, Marlborough

State of Flux sauvignon blanc 2019

A balanced and long wine from a single vineyard overlooking the Awatere river. The name comes from the fact the wine has been fermented and aged for 11 months in concrete eggs with the lees kept in "state of constant flux". RRP £27, Score 92

Kelly Washington, Marlborough

Chardonnay 2019, organic

A fresh and moderately complex chard. Too expensive. RRP £34. Score 86

Wild Irishman, Central Otago

Tuturi Pinot Noir 2021

A powerful wine on the border of excellence. Ready now. RRP £45, Score 90

Domaine Thomson Surveyor, Central Otago

Thomson pinot noir 2017

Tannins still a bit rough but very promising.

Smoky and jammy. RRP 44. Score 90

A new Zealand walkaround in London

A fun day tasting New Zealand wines, expertly organized by Sarah Shepherd and Chris Stroud of NZ Wine. A large gathering with a wide range of products. 

Here below are some of the gems that I thought were most worth taking note of. I surely missed many more as one day was just not enough to do justice to this great event: 270 wines, over 20 styles, and a special section dedicated to organic wines which reserved a few gems for us. 

Indicative RRP in GBP.

Click on the vineyard's name to link to their websites.

Akitu

Akitu pinot noir blanc 2021
Pinot noir 100% vinified as white wine, with only a shade of pink to betray the original red grape. Citrus, almonds, good balance and mod length. A pleasant surprise. GBP 42, not cheap. Score 88

Akitu A2, pinot noir 100%
A good simple pinot noir, a bit expensive at GBP 31.

Score 85

Akitu A1, pinot noir 100%

A more complex variation of this noble grape. GBP 31

Score 86

Craggy Range

Craggy Range Aroha Pinot noir 2019

A complex wine which is surprisingly mature already. GBP 75

Score 92

Craggy Range Le Sol Syrah 2019

Also amazingly ready to please the taster, GBP 75

Score 92

Craggy Range Sophia Red Blend 2019

60% Merlot, 26% Cab franc, 14% cab sauvignon. 

The least interesting of the top three, it is anyway a very successful blend with a round body, also ready now. GBP 75

Score 89

Burn Cottage

Vineyard Riesling Gruner Veltliner 2019

A tingling wine of floral complexity and citrussy notes. GBP 48

Score 90.

Pinot Noir Moonlight Race 2019

Full, tannic, fresh. An exuberant wine. GBP 42

Score 92

Central Otago Vineyard Pinot Noir 2019

Very full, round, long, a majestic wine. GBP 53

Score 94

Trinity Hill

Gimblett Gravels Marsanne/Viognier 2019

Vanilla, butter. GBP 25

Score 88.

Gimblett Gravels "The Gimblett"

54% cab sauvignon, 43% cab franc, 3% tempranillo

A structured wine with a bitterish end that promises a great evolution. GBP 25

Score 86

"Homage" Gimblett Shiraz 2018

Fermented on viognier skins! Complex, tannis, needs time. GBP 99

Score 90

Below a selection of my best finds in the separate organic wine walkaround. Organic wines are making huge progress in quality, also in New Zealand.

Clos Henri 

Pinot Noir, Marlborough 2017

A surprise, smooth, long and mod complex. GBP 28

Score 93

Greystone 

Pinot Noir, Waipara, Canterbury 2018

Smooth long and complex, an amazing quality/price ratio. GBP 26

Score 93

Black Estate 

Damsteep Pinot Noir Canterbury 2019

A top wine, perfect balance and complex. A harmonious wine. GBP 46

Score 94

Black Estate 

Home Pinot Noir Canterbury 2019

Similar to previous wine, GBP 46

Score 94

Felton Road 

Pinot Noir Block 3, Bannockburn, Central Otago 2020

Complex and long. GBP 62

Score 92

Felton Road 

Pinot Noir Block 5, Bannockburn, Central Otago 2020

Similar to previous wine, GBP 62

Score 92

Organic wines of New Zealand

Most interesting event hosted by New Zealand Wines, expertly and safely organized by Sarah Shepherd at 67 Pall Mall in London. 

An informative way to spend a rainy morning, about 75 bottles to be tasted and some amazing surprises.

Overall, the quality of organic wines is increasing, not just in New Zealand but worldwide, as producers master the techniques. Still, a few wines today could not hide their rough edges, this is typical of less stable organic wines, and more work is to be done.

Compared to previous NZ tasting I noticed a marked improvement of their chardonnays. Sauvignon blancs remain the workhorse of NZ production and confirmed their world class quality also among this organic selection. 

Some exceptional gems stood out among the pinot noirs. Not quite the structure of Burgundy but these wines were full of complex and round fruit, they proved to be very long and, alas, relatively expensive, which I consider a sign of success in the market.

Below are my notes from a selection of all the wines tasted today.

chards and sauvignon whites...

BLENDS

1. Kelly Washington semillon/sauvignon blanc, Marlborough, 2018

An easy, fruity, smooth wine, good balance. RRP £24, Score 84.

2. Kelly Washington pinot blanc, Marlborough, 2020

Biodynamic, another easy typical pinot blanc, reminds me of Alsace brothers. RRP £25, Score 86.

SAUVIGNON BLANC

3. Loveblock TEE sauvignon blanc, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, 2020

No sulphites added at all to this round and complex product. RRP £23, Score 88.

4. Osawa Wines Prestige Collection sauvignon blanc, Hawke's Bay, 2019

A typical sauvignon blanc, balanced and moderately complex, long. RRP £25, Score 89.

5. Dog Point Vineyards Selection 94 sauvignon blanc, Southern Valleys, marlborough, 2018

Strong citrus notes give a welcome freshness to this chardonnay, well balanced by vanilla in a long finish. RRP £25, Score 90.

CHARDONNAY

6. Osawa Wines Prestige Collection chardonnay, Hawke's Bay 2019

Another fresh chard with a unique sapid accent, which keeps on going... RRP £28, Score 88

7. Felton Road chardonnay Block 6, Bannockburn, Central Otago 2020

Pineapple, vanilla, an elegant wine, complex and long, perfectly balanced. RRP £32, Score 92

... and reds: world class pinot noir

8. Felton Road pinot noir Cornish Point, Bannockburn, Central Otago 2020
Balanced and complex, needs a few years in the bottle to round a few rough edges. RRP £ 42, Score 88.

9. Black Estate Home pinot noir, Bannockburn, Central Otago, 2020

A great wine, smooth, long, powerful, complex in the extreme. Intense fruit meets elegance and structure and makes one dream of what the evolution in bottle might bring. RRP 46.50, Score 94

10. Felton Road, pinot noir Calvert, Bannockburn, Central Otago 2020

Another amazing wine from Felton Road, reveals immense potential in the nose and captivates the mind with a complex swirl of red fruits and chocolate in the mouth. Very long. RRP 42, Score 95

11. Felton Road, pinot noir Block 3, Bannockburn, Central Otago 2020

Similar to the preceding wine, but perhaps even more complex. RRP £60, Score 95

12. Quartz Reef Bendigo Estate single ferment pinot noir, bendigo, Central Otago 2019

Another top pinot noir, spicy, opulent. RRP £55, Score 93

13. Burn Cottage Vineyard pinot noir, Central Otago, 2018
Similar in many ways to the preceding wine, RRP £ 53, Score 93

What an amazing tasting of pinot noirs! 

These days one is never too far away from a gel sanitizer

Organic production in NZ, image by Biogro

Film Review: A seat at the table (2019) by David Nash and Simon Mark-Brown , **

Synopsis

A New Zealand winemaking team enters the period known as Vintage when wine is made 24/7 for months on end. Sleepless nights, endless labor, time away from home means they must ensure nature, science and magic come together to overcome each challenge Vintage presents. (from imdb)

Review

A missed opportunity. The makers of this documentary had access to the whole process of harvesting at a large New Zealand vineyard but we learn very little in over one hour of watching this repetitive production. We hear a hundred times how hard the work is during harvest, and how awesome everyone in the multinational team of pickers is, but little else. 

Some information that one learns in this film: foreigners now own one third of NZ wine production, the French were the first to invest, in the 1980s. 

Biodynamics taking off.

Not so many rules like in Europe about controlled origins, allowed varieties, irrigation, chaptalization, so  NZ can experiment more.

One curiosity: lots of pigs apparently threaten the harvest at night, and even deer. As for birds, they try and do their share of eating but mostly cause botrytis, which is some parts of the world is welcome as it allows to make sweet wines, but not here.

Read my reviews of films about wine here.

Film review: Vintage (2019) by Colin West *

Synopsis

A New Zealand winemaking team enters the period known as Vintage when wine is made 24/7 for months on end. Sleepless nights, endless labor, time away from home means they must ensure nature, science and magic come together to overcome each challenge Vintage presents. (from imdb)

Review

A missed opportunity. The makers of this documentary had access to the whole process of harvesting at a large New Zealand vineyard but we learn very little in over one hour of watching this repetitive production. We hear a hundred times how hard the work is during harvest, and how awesome everyone in the multinational team of pickers is, but little else. 

One curiosity: lots of pigs apparently threaten the harvest at night, and even deer. As for birds, they try and do their share of eating but mostly cause botrytis, which is some parts of the world is welcome as it allows to make sweet wines, but not here.

New Zealand wine and Maori art

New Zealand wines in 2018

Beautiful room in the Royal Academy, set up by NZ Wines for the exhibition of Maori art, which we are allowed to enter for free. There I attended a wine tasting, starting with Sauvignon Blanc, and found that these best wines were from Marlborough. They also tried a variety of other wines, including Chardonnay, Viognier, Riesling, and Syrah.

I found that the Chardonnays were not particularly impressive, and that the Pinot Noirs were disappointing. The best Syrah they tried was from Elephant Hill, a winery in Hawke's Bay. The best Riesling was a botrytised Riesling from Pegasus Bay, a winery in Canterbury.

Overall a positive and enjoyable experience, and learned a lot about New Zealand wines.

Even though they offer us Riesling first, I started with Sauvignon Blanc. The first ones in the lower range are squeezed stones. I skip the details. Instead, going up the category here are the best ie best balanced.

SAUVIGNON

Here some of my notes from the best tastings.

Rapaura, Marlborough the best so far great nose, figs and almonds perfect balance

Yealands single vineyard, Marlborough super sauvignon typicality, but not aggressive

Esk Valley, Marlborough the softest so far, but not complex, it declines in the end

Babich, Marlborough intense, very complex and persistent

Babich black label not as complex or long as the other Babich

Babich organic simple wine, they try it with the organic but it is not easy

Rapaura reserve, Marlborough explosive in floral nose complex and long the best so far, by far score 90

Jackson estate stich, Marlborough great nose moderate complexity

Saint clair 2017 wailau réserve Complex some caramel perfect balance

Te pa oke 2017 wairau valley impressive wine complex and long toasted notes score 90

I tried various Chardonnays but for me they confirm themselves as a sole, despite Jancis Robinson recently writing positive reviews about them. Maybe I am spoiled by so many Burgundy but these lack backbone. They try to charm but they do not convince.

A couple of Viognier without infamy and without praise, they still have to work on it.

RIESLING

babich family estated 2017 fruity good nose score 86

Felton road Bannock burn central Otago similar to the previous 19 gbp

Felton road block 1 a tad sweet ending good x fine meal score 86 33 gbp expensive

PINOT NOIR

Pinot noirs present surprisingly are not up to par.

Syrah Craggy range, le sol, 2016 good wine esp nose way too expensive 70 gbp, they are crazy

Elephant hill stone Syrah 2015 Hawker Bay best so far not cheap 44 gbp

Pegasus bay, 2016 Canterbury encore noble Riesling, botrytized nice afternoon finish, minerality and softness in perfect balance, good length excellent end for tasting 21 gbp for half a bottle