Sweet smell of success

CHEERS: Barton on Wine

In the latest (2009) edition of his indispensable Buyer's Guide to New Zealand Wines, Michael Cooper notes the: our sweet white wines (often called dessert wines) are hardly taking the world by storm, accounting for only 0.03 per cent of our wine exports.

"Yet," he adds, "winemakers around the country work hard to produce some ravishingly beautiful, honey-sweet white wines that are worth discovering and can certainly hold their own internationally."

And that they certainly do, having several times in the past few years won the Sweet Wine Trophy in Decanter magazine's World Wine Awards and figured in the International Wine Challenge and other prestigious competitions. What Cooper doesn't tell us though is that one of the reasons these beautiful wines are not more keenly sought after is that for years their sale has been banned in the United Kingdom, our biggest export market, and in countries that are members of the European Community.

The problem has been an EU rule which allows the import of table wines with an alcoholic strength by volume of up to 15 per cent but bans the marketing or sale of wine if its total alcoholic strength – the sum of the actual and the potential strength (if the residual sugar were fermented) exceeds 15 per cent. As a result sweet New Zealand wines, which contain naturally high levels of residual sugar and thus a potential alcohol strength of more than 15 per cent, have for more than 20 years been shut out by the protectionist Europeans.

But not any more, which is a huge relief for New Zealand Winegrowers which has been negotiating to have the ban lifted since 1990, and good news for buyers who this week attended the first major tasting of New Zealand wines in London since a settlement was reached last month.

Good news, too, for the producers of late harvest and noble sweet style wines which already have the undivided attention of devotees in this and in other countries.

We are talking here of wines based mainly on riesling, but including semillon, gewurztraminer, sauvignon blanc and other white varieties which have either been picked late or dehydrated on the vines by botrytis cinerea, the so-called "noble rot".

Among those who make some of the best, and more than one example of these wines are Framingham, Fromm and Forrest Estate in Marlborough, Pegasus Bay in Canterbury, Margrain in Martinborough, and Ngatarawa in Hawke's Bay.

Framingham's 2008 selection is particularly good – three stunning and slightly different auslese style (made from selectively harvested very sweet whole or part bunches) $40 rieslings; a late-picked and similarly low alcohol (7.5 per cent) Select Riesling that sells for about $30; a sweet, rich and spicy Gewurztraminer SGN ($40); and a delectable, great value ($30) Noble Riesling that leaves the palate fresh, clean and satisfied.

Likewise Fromm's 2008's – a soft, well-priced ($24) Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, and a stunning Spatlese (late harvest) Riesling with an alcohol content of only 7 per cent.

Among Forrest Estate's growing fleet of these wines (made under several different labels) is The Doctors' gorgeous, stonefruited 2008 Noble Chenin Blanc ($30); a honey-sweet 2008 Botrytised Riesling ; and from the premium John Forrest Collection, a classy 2005 Noble Riesling ($45) that demands attention. Margrain's 2009 botrytised wines (a $28 sauvignon blanc, a chenin blanc and riesling which each sell for $38) earned gold at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards, which speaks for itself; all of Pegasus Bay's musical dessert trio, but particularly the 2008 Aria Late Harvest Riesling, are worth the $37 investment; and while Alwyn, a noble Riesling is the pride of the Ngatarawa stable, the 2007 Farmgate Noble Harvest Riesling ($40) and the 2009 Glazebrook Regional Reserve Noble Harvest ($32) are also excellent wines.

There are, of course, also plenty of other excellent "stickies" from which to choose, many more affordable (remember they come in 375ml bottles) than some of these.

Let's just hope the Poms, or those devious Europeans, develop too much of a taste for them.

- © Fairfax NZ News