New Marlborough Vintage!

I saw my first 2009 vintage bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc today at Morrisons and had to buy it as … it was on special! The Montana Sauvignon Blanc, usually £8.29, was down to the reachable price of £6.

The wine was delicious, bursting with gooseberry, lemon and tropical fruit flavours – summer in a mouthful.

So why is the 2009 Marlborough vintage so good?

After a bumper vintage in 2008, which lead to over supply of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, many grape growers controlled the amount of grapes that they produced by undertaking a green harvest.

Basically this means picking bunches of grapes off of the vine before the grapes fully ripen.

By doing this, the remaining bunches can ripen evenly, resulting in a better quality wine, as well as the overall yield being smaller and bringing the supply back in line with demand.

However, even though many producers undertook the green harvest, not everyone did. Unlike many European countries New Zealand’s wine industry has no regulations or controlling bodies to dictate certain aspects of production, like yield limits. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is still in slight oversupply which leads to…

Cheaper prices for us!

For now anyway.

As wine consumers we quickly become accustomed to paying a certain price for a certain wine. New Zealand wine growers have always held the highest average bottle price for their wines as most of us believe the wine quality is worth the price.

With the shelf prices decreasing, largely due to oversupply, we are becoming accustomed to paying less for these wines. When the supply moves back in line with demand, will we pay the higher prices?

Many think we won’t. One industry observer comments ‘buyers are not going to run sub £5 promotions on Sauvignon Blanc for two years then raise the price; they will simply ask for the same deal’ (IWSR June 2009). This results in pressure on the producers to produce a wine that will sell at lower prices.

Producers don’t have to do this. They can chose to reduce quality to produce a cheaper wine, or continue with producing a quality wine but risk losing their place on off licence shelves.

Do we want to see producers reduce their wine quality just to meet price points? More importantly, do we want to drink wine that is of lesser quality than what could be produced?

Enjoy these wines on promotion while you can, with an understanding of why they are on promotion. Then one day, take a punt. Buy a Marlborough Sauvignon that’s not on promotion – perhaps a brand you have never seen before.

Enjoy the fact that you’re tasting a wonderful wine from the other side of the world, supporting that producer and enabling them to invest in the wines that you love to drink.