Reading between wine awards

CHEERS: Barton on Wine

Contrary to popular belief the Air New Zealand Wine Awards are not the be-all or the end-all when it comes to identifying what's hot, what's not, because only about half of our 600-odd wineries subject their wines to judges' scrutiny.

But be that as it may our most prestigious wine show still provides the most complete and up-to-date snapshot that we get each year of the quality of the wines that we produce in any given year or years whether they are in the show or not.

It is just a matter of analysing the results; of reading between the lines if you like.

Let's look at pinot noir, which this year attracted more than 300 entries, earned more gold medals than any other variety and provided the champion wine of show.

Not only does this tell us that the great red wine of Burgundy is one of our hottest varieties but that those who make it are more confident than ever about the quality of their wines after a couple of good vintages.

Especially so those in Martinborough, which pioneered the variety in this country, and this year, for the first time ever, provided the champion wine, albeit from a relative newcomer – Julicher Estate.

Look a little more carefully at the results and you will see that Julicher's second string 2008 99 Rows Pinot Noir also earned gold and another (also a 2008) from Pond Paddock, a neighbour in the Te Muna Valley, got gold too. So did another (Fairmont 2008) from another small producer further up the road in the Wairarapa.

Join all the dots and it tells us that not only these wines but 2008 pinot noirs from this area, from Te Muna in particular, are also well worth checking out, including those from wineries with an established reputation which do not enter shows – Craggy Range and Escarpment for starters. And let's not write Central Otago pinot noirs off just because there were only a couple of familiar names among the list of golds.

Central Otago pinot noirs were, in fact, awarded seven of the 19 golds in the class and two of them trophies.

Georgetown Vineyard 2007 won the Exhibition Red Wine trophy and Waipara Hills 2008 Southern Cross Selection the Open Red Wine trophy.

Other gold medal winners were 2007s from Davishon and Wooing Tree and 2008s from Thornbury, Valli, and Mary and Janusz Zurokowski's debut vintage of Archangel Pinot Noir.

But let's not leave it there.

To gauge the true strength of a vintage it is sometimes best to look beyond the golds at silver medal winners and this year's long list includes wines from all the regions in which it's grown and confirms what the golds appear to tell us – that there's some damned good pinot noir out there.

And chardonnays, too, which is a salutary reminder for those who rubbish this princely white and happily glug away on wines that are inferior in quality and lacking in finesse. And just to prove the point eight of the 18 gold medals awarded chardonnays this year (four of them to Villa Maria) were "pure" or "elite", which indicates wines of outstanding quality.

And let's remember again that many of the wineries acknowledged as leading chardonnay producers do not show their wines which I'd suggest speaks volumes for chardonnays in general from the most recent vintages.

Also confirmed by the judges is the growing reputation and quality of our aromatic wines – particularly riesling (Olssen's 2009 Annieburn Central Otago Riesling won the Sustainable Wine Trophy) and gewurztraminer. We're also told a few things that we already knew, the most obvious being the outstanding quality of Hawke's Bay reds from the 2007 vintage which means again that many wines the Air New Zealand judges didn't get to taste should be very special, too.

These are results that deserve more attention than they often get.