Out Of The Bottle
With David Ellis New Zealand Sauvignon BlancIf
you were a grower or a winemaker prepared to take a punt on a
just-conducted survey of our wine-drinking habits, you’d be chopping
out your Chardonnay, swooning over your Sauvignon Blanc, and planting
Pinot Noir.
The survey, amongst guests and diners at Mercure
Hotels’ 23-properties across Australia, found drinkers were turning off
Chardonnay in their droves – making it the fastest-declining white
variety in the popularity stakes.
By comparison, sales of
Sauvignon Blanc through the Mercure Groups’ restaurants and bars
increased 47% over the past two years, and while Shiraz was the
overwhelmingly most popular red in the same period (followed closely by
Cabernet blends,) the fastest-growing red wine of choice was Pinot Noir.
And
probably not surprisingly the survey found New Zealand Sauvignon
Blanc leading the field in popularity, but with Aussie labels
catching up as diners seek out local food-friendly wines – something
Sauvignon Blanc certainly is.
Riesling was another variety to
take a hammering in the survey, and interest-ingly it was women leading
the charge on Sauvignon Blanc (as well as better sparklings and lighter
reds.) A majority of men still preferred reds to whites.
One For Lunch
In
our own tasting of Aussie-made Sauvignon Blanc, we gave our thumbs-up
for Best Value For Money to Westend’s 2009 Richland from the Riverina –
a nicely full-bodied and richly textured wine with loads of tropical
fruit flavours, a dry crisp finish and a hard-to-beat $11.99
price tag.
Best Food Match: Logan Wines’ 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
from Orange – plenty of zingy lime, pink grapefruit, green mango and
minerality ($22;) Best Party Room SB: Wicks Estate Adelaide Hills 2009
– an $18 beauty of a quaffer with herbaceous and tropical fruit
flavours; Best Value Import: The Crossing 2008 SB from New Zealand’s
Marlborough, an undeniable ripper at $16.99.
Enjoy all these wines with shellfish, Asian stir fries or stronger cheeses.
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