It is vinified in both oaked and unoaked styles but in recent years the use of oak has become more restrained and nuanced.
The country is now striving to make consumers aware of its ability to produce outstanding wines from many other grape varieties.Ĭhardonnay is the third most planted grape variety and tends to produce elegant and fruit-driven wines with great concentration and refreshing acidity that display citrus and tropical fruit notes. On the red front, many already know that New Zealand excels at producing bright, vibrant Pinot Noir with aromas of raspberry, cherry and plum. Today, Sauvignon Blanc still represents the lion’s share of New Zealand’s wine production at close to 60 per cent.
This rapid growth is, in part, due to New Zealand’s single-minded focus on producing distinctive premium-quality Sauvignon Blanc. It is worth noting that Canada is the fourth largest export market for New Zealand wines after the U.S., the U,K, and Australia. The growth of New Zealand wine exports started picking up in the mid-’90s, exploded around 2005 and has not slowed down since. The resulting wines were exuberant and intense with aromas of bell pepper, gooseberry and passion fruit and captured awards and palates around the world in the 1980s. Wine grapes were grown in New Zealand as far back as the 1800s but what propelled this cool-climate Island nation to the fore is undoubtedly the introduction of Sauvignon Blanc vines in the Marlborough region in the 1970s. It is a success story that many of today’s emerging wine regions, such as Tasmania and Uruguay, look to despite their differing realities and circumstances in the hope of making it to mainstream global consciousness and financial success. The meteoric rise of New Zealand in the last 30 years best illustrates these recent tectonic shifts in the wine world.
It’s hard to believe today, but a mere 50 years ago, countries such as Australia and Argentina barely existed on the wine map. At best, they are relegated to a paltry paragraph somewhere on page 952. Pick up a wine encyclopedia from 1963, and many countries that we take for granted and consider staples today are nowhere to be found. These activities are often the subject of spirited exchanges at home about the use of space.Īside from testing my better half’s patience and my ability to build bookshelves and hang frames relatively straight, these artifacts are tangible proof that the wine world has been evolving at a break-neck pace over the past 50 years. In addition to maintaining a modest cellar, I fancy myself as a passable collector of antique wine books and vintage wine maps.