Wine industry alarmed at sav savaging

A leading British wine critic has slated Marlborough sauvignon blancs as "evil, watery, grassy wines" in a move that has the district's wine growers seeing red.

The stinging criticism, published in the influential UK newspaper The Times, has winemakers across New Zealand worried.

More than half of New Zealand wine comes from Marlborough; a dent in the region's reputation abroad could rub off on everyone else, with the potential to seriously damage an industry whose export earnings are expected to top the $1 billion mark this year.

In a column published this month, British wine critic Jane MacQuitty said she was horrified to discover a whole slew of "supposedly top-notch" sauvignons from Marlborough that she was judging at the recent Decanter World Wine Awards "were evil, watery, grassy wines".

"The top drops among them did have the herbaceous, flowering currant and tropical fruit characters that have made this classic New World appellation a global crowd- pleaser ever since Cloudy Bay's moody, misty label and zingy sauvignon blanc within pushed this wine style into the finest and rarest cult class in the mid-1980s.

"But there were none at this Decanter competition to which I personally wanted to award even a bronze medal and none that I would have paid £7 to taste again," MacQuitty said.

She went on to say that a leading Australian wine expert had informed her that detrimentally high yields being squeezed out of sauvignon blanc grapes in the Marlborough region were taking their toll.

"The bumper, record-breaking 2008 New Zealand sauvignon blanc harvest has helped quantity, not quality," she said, before advising her readers that they would be better off spending their money on French wines.

Wine Marlborough marketing manager Marcus Pickens said MacQuitty's comments were unfair and contrary to what most wine critics were saying about the 2008 vintage.

"We have had numerous successes at wine shows all over the world with our 2008 sauvignon blancs."

Pickens said that seeing such criticism published in a leading British newspaper was worrying, as the UK market was important to Marlborough's wine industry, but it would only strengthen the industry's resolve.

Leading New Zealand wine critic Geoff Kelly also believes MacQuitty got it wrong. A few producers had harvested larger crops in 2008 and naturally their wines were a "little more diluted", but on the whole the Marlborough sauvignons were as delicious as ever and exemplary wines.

"I think it is just a throwaway line to catch a headline."

Kelly said wine producers were aware of the need to put quality ahead of quantity, which is why some had reduced their crop levels this year.

NZ Winegrowers chief executive Philip Gregan raised the need for the industry to focus on quality not quantity in an opinion piece in the Marlborough Express earlier this year.

He said the Australian wine industry's over-production should sound a warning for New Zealand.