From the category archives:

New Zealand

Yealands Estate Sauvignon blanc

30 January 2012
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Yealands Estate has just recently been named the official wine of the Sustainable Restaurant Association. The winery is the first one in the world to produce wine sustainably. From the vineyards to the winery, they combine leading technology and environmental design to ensure efficient and sustainable production. The winery was built under the Green Building Code. They [...]

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Urlar Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2010

2 December 2011
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I had a surprisingly un-New Zealand-like Sauvignon Blanc at dinner the other night. NZ Sauvignon Blanc was at one time very exciting, bursting on to the UK wine scene back in the ’90s. Since then, however, it has suffered a glut of wine production and too many big companies cranking out mediocre wine to satisfy [...]

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Archangel – New Zealand Pinot Gris

2 May 2011
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New Zealand made its name in the wine world with Sauvignon Blanc but that was a few years back and although NZ s.b. is still a big seller, it’s become a bit of an old stand-by. New Zealand winemakers are still making excellent Sauvignon Blanc, but many of them are branching out into other white [...]

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Tawhiri Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009 – Saucy!

18 April 2011
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£7.99 from the Co-op: this is absolutely standard. Being a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, that standard is high – as I’ve generally found before – and it couldn’t be any more popular than it is right now – you can’t bloody move for the stuff in most supermarkets, and I imagine it makes up a significant [...]

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Marks & Spencer Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009

22 November 2010
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Sauvignon Blanc New Zealand Marlborough Estate Marks & Spencer Mixed Case £45 Screw Top 13.5% Picnic Time! The great outdoors beckons with this Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough Estate on New Zealand’s South Island. A little fact for you is that not one vineyard on the South Island is more than 80 miles from the [...]

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Dog Point 2008 Sauvignon Blanc

30 October 2010
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Not quite like any Sauvignon Blanc I’ve tasted, this one; but before tasting: a wet, autumn field smell as much damp and dewy as it is grassy and mulchy – it takes me right back to walking to school as the lawn-mower man was cutting the field on his big field-cutting machine. Would that happen [...]

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Pegagus Bay Bel Canto Dry Riesling 2008 at Providores

25 October 2010
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Late for lunch and running as usual I burst into The Providores and plopped down across from my lunchtime companion, Vintage Macaroon, gasping for a drink. Ms Mac doesn’t like off-dry wines so after  much consideration of the wine list and much changing of our minds, we opted for the recommended dry Riesling from the [...]

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Seresin Estate 2005 Riesling – organic and biodynamic from New Zealand

20 August 2010
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Organic. Biodynamic. Sustainable. Buzz words all but do they catch your eye when you’re choosing a wine or a restaurant? I ate recently with representatives of the Sustainable Restaurant Association as they tried to convince me of the viability of sustainability in the restaurant trade. We sampled the food and wine from 3 different central [...]

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Montana Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009

16 August 2010
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This is one tangy wine. Pour it into your mouth and you’ll get a zinging, citrus powered kick that seizes your unsuspecting taste-buds and gets them leaping about with joyful abandon. It’s a hefty dose, full of grapefruit and gooseberry (the label insists there’s capsicum in there as well). The flavour touches the front of [...]

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Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2009

2 August 2010
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Sauvignon Blanc used to grow wild in the South of France and its smell has been unfavourably compared to cat pee. That stands to reason, doesn’t it? ‘Sauvignon’ from ‘Sauvage‘, meaning ‘Wild’ in plain, civilised English. And you could hardly compare something favourably to the smell of cat pee, could you? If there’s one grape [...]

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Te Kauwhata – Quarry Road Estate – Pinot Gris

30 October 2009
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A rare variety in New Zealand – light glittering colour, vanilla bouquet with a firm body, dry and crispy. Other Quarry Road wines include Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Merlot/Malbec – of these, some are relatively new plantings which are just reaching full production. The quality can be testified by numerous [...]

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