It’s fashionable to bash Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, but I confess I’m a fan. At their best, they represent the sort of flamboyant vulgarity that is its own reward. I think their style misleads some into thinking all examples are equivalent, but I’d suggest their outré character makes things like balance and scale more important than many other, perhaps more forgiving, wine styles. When Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc goes off the rails, it really shows.

All of which is a less than promising introduction to this wine, made by a Hawkes Bay winery from Marlborough fruit. From what I understand, 2008 wasn’t a spectacular year, many wines showing the challenges of the vintage. This is the first I’ve tried, and it’s not a disaster by any means, but it is firmly tilted towards the sort of herbal grassiness I associate more with Margaret River than Marlborough, and which I have trouble with in excessive quantities.

On the nose, typically forthright yet showing a strident grassiness that sits atop the aroma profile, dominating other notes of crisp passionfruit and gooseberry. This somehow makes it more astringent yet duller at the same time; not a great outcome. It says something for the resilience of this style that, despite the odd balance, this wine is still quite clearly a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The palate shows a softer wine that, whist remaining shackled to grassy notes, also remains quite drinkable through clever winemaking. By tempering any excess of acidity, the winemakers have softened this wine’s inherently astringent flavour profile to the point where it goes down quite easily. It continues to lack substance in terms of fruit notes, but it’s crisp and clean and refreshing. One could do a lot worse.

As an aside, I must come up with some form of shorthand for “Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc,” as it’s quite cumbersome to type over and over again. Any suggestions?

Vidal Estate
Price: $NZ20
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: December 2008

I remember when I first tasted this wine, in the late 90s. I came a bit late to Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, you see, but the Giesen gave me an inexpensive taste of what it was about. It continues to be my favourite “reliable” example of the genre, and as 2007 has been talked up in the Marlborough, I was interested to taste this wine over the weekend.
As is typical with this wine, somewhat explosive aromas of cut grass, passionfruit and other astringent fruits leap from the glass. This is a wine that bursts into the room with all guns blazing. It’s piercing and characterful and gloriously vulgar. It’s also, within the context of the style, balanced and attractive.
The entry shows tingly acid and a sourness that carries through to the mid-palate. Within this light bodied wine, there are intense flavours that mirror the nose, along with a somewhat scouring mouthfeel. There’s a deceleration towards the after palate, and the finish is an echo rather than a substantial continuation of the wine’s flavour, but by that time, you’re ready for another sip anyway.
No great complexity of flavour, then, but it’s a hugely enjoyable wine that exists at the more outré end of the stylistic spectrum for “budget” Sauvignon Blancs. Personally, I don’t see the point to the softer, more rounded wines that are crafted for maximum acceptability but, to me, represent a denial of terroir and style.
GiesenPrice: $A15Closure: StelvinDate tasted: February 2008