Wine Notes
New Zealand Wine Notes — 12/12/2008
Over the past twenty years New Zealand wines have enjoyed a meteoric rise. In the 1980’s New Zealand was famous for one thing, producing awesome rugby players, but in the mid 80’s this changed as a wave of Sauvignon Blanc wines broke onto the English market. Wineries such as Montana and Hunter’s started producing a style of Sauvignon Blanc that was radically different to anything English wine drinkers had tasted before. Like most overnight successes, this revolution was the result of years of hard work.
In fact the New Zealand wine industry dates back almost two hundred years. The first vines were planted by missionaries in 1819. With no readily available export market, and a domestic clientelle unfamiliar with wine drinking, the industry remained of minority interest until the mid 1980’s. New Zealand grape growers and winemakers have been subject to all the problems that have afflicted wine producers around the world. Oidiuum, Phylloxera, Prohibition and the great Depression of the 1930’s all took their toll on the nascent wine industry in New Zealand. These problems were compounded by the fact that, as a virtually subsistent industry, growers chose to plant first American, and then hybrid grape varieties. These had the advantages that they were easy to grow, and they were prolific producers. Unfortunately, they also suffered from the disadvantage that they produced execrable wines. As late as the mid 1960’s the majority of plantings were of the American...
