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I can guarantee that when I hold a panel tasting for New Zealand Sauvignon I’ll have to put an extra leaf in the table. It’s also pretty certain that if I take a bottle of it to a dinner party the host will be grateful, and I also have confidence that when I open the bottle, the wine will be fault free and of good quality. We tasted nine wines and they were all good. They were fresh, pleasant, tangy and absolutely recognisable.
Some wines got higher scores than others but, more than other tastings, these scores were almost pointless because with a wine made from the same grapes in a fairly small area, with few winemaking tweaks, the wines are largely similar, and differences in marks are because of personal preference, rather than this wine is “better” than that.
Marks & Spencers’ Wairau Valley 2006 got the highest marks from the group, although I marked it down for being too ripe. It smelt of pineapple, with only the merest hint of gooseberry and was sweet and fruity in the mouth, with tropical notes. All for £7.99.
Maven 2006, from Thresher and Wine Rack, was second at £9.99 or £6.66 on multibuy. If you can buy it in threes, this is a very good value wine, indeed. It had a catty, savoury, typical smell, so I was happy and the taste was tangy, drier and slightly textured. It just seemed a more serious wine than the others – verging on being austere – with a pithy finish. Dashwood 2006, which is a very reasonable £6.99 from Oddbins, smelt richly tropical – earthily like mango or guava. The taste was richly tropical, which we found was rather nice. The Co-op’s Explorers Vineyard 2005 is £6.49 and smelt oaky. There’s no mention on the bottle but the taste is fuller, savoury and definitely seems oaky. However, it is a year older and age can do strange things to NZ Sauvignon. I would always drink it within 18 months of harvest.
Jackson Estate 2006 was our most expensive at £9.99 from Majestic. It smelt disappointingly of pear or acid drops. It was acidic, fresh and tangy, but Lorraine described it as “a tart little number” which lost it points. Nobilo Five Fathoms 2005 is £6.49 at Waitrose and again the extra year in bottle did nothing for the aroma, which meant it lost marks. The taste was perfectly reasonable.
Seifried 2006, which is £7.99 at Morrisons smelt catty and tasted absolutely typical. It lost marks for having just too much prickle, which is very noticeable when part of a comparative tasting, but may be fine when drunk as an aperitif with sparkling conversation.
Sileni 2006, from Thresher and Wine Rack smelt sherbety and was quite sweet tasting. Our least favourite, which is a wine we have all enjoyed in isolation, was Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference. It seemed simple and lemony, but was in no way nasty.
All the wines we tasted were valid, good wines, and hopefully from the descriptions you’ll be able to get a feel for the one you would prefer. I’ll be dropping into Thresher for the Maven, but that’s just me….