I’m writing from the Mornington Peninsula, an area viewed by local vignerons as the heart of Australia’s pinot noir country. They’ve adopted pinot as their signature variety. And in a show of unity rare in an Australian wine region they’re taking this single, strong message to the world.

It’s a comparative small wine-growing region, where 61 wineries crush 6,000 tonnes a year of grapes from 940 hectares of vines. But it’s highly specialised as pinot noir accounts for 43 per cent (2,576 tonnes) of that output.

To put that in perspective it’s interesting to look at production in other areas specialising in pinot. The output of France’s Cote d’Or region (Burgundy), for example, dwarfs the Mornington figure – pinot accounts for about 45,333 (60 per cent) of the annual 75,333 tonnes crush.

And while the nearby Yarra Valley crushed significantly more pinot than Mornington, it’s 4,200 tonnes represented 22 per cent of the total of 19,000 tonnes – indicating that the Yarra’s far less specialised.

The story changes dramatically, though, when we shift a few degrees south to Tassie, where pinot represents 45 per cent of wine grape production – 1,264 out of 2,807 tonnes. However, much of this is destined for sparkling wine production, not red table wine production. Still Tasmania remains an increasingly important source of top-notch red wine made from pinot noir.

But the most stunning concentration of pinot production in the southern hemisphere is in New Zealand’s Central Otago region at 45 degrees south. Last year’s pinot production of 7,509 tonnes represented 80 per cent of the area’s 9,495 tonne harvest.

And in America, Oregon’s Willamette Valley vignerons processed 17,463 tonnes of pinot in a total crush of 25,869 tonnes.

Part of the marketing push by the Mornington Peninsula Vignerons Association is the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration, a two-day symposium and tasting, attended this year by about 170  wine industry folk and writers from around the world and a sprinkling of die-hard pinot drinkers.

They’re all pinot nuts and opinion makers, drawn there by the range and quality of wines up for tasting (not just from Mornington) — and discussions, led by some of the best Australian, New Zealand, French, American and Canadian winemakers and writers.

This year’s tastings included wine from France’s Burgundy region, California’s Anderson Valley and Oregon’s Willamette Valley in the United States, Chile’s San Antonio Valley, the Okanagan Valley in Canada’s British Columbia and several Victorian, Tasmanian and New Zealand regions.

But at the opening of the Celebration, keynote speaker Jancis Robinson, suggested a few surprise pinot-producing regions that might be included in future tastings.

These could include wines from Ontario – once too cold for grape growing, but not any longer – and perhaps some from Austria, Switzerland and Germany. The Germans, she said, are “mad about pinot noir”, known there as spätburgunder.

It’s now Germany’s second most planted variety after riesling, she said, and some of them are very good. She’d recently attended a tasting of very old German spätburgunders and French Burgundies (1920s to 1950s vintages) in the twelfth century Kloster Eberbach. The German wines fared reasonably well, she said, and some of the 1940s vintages looked more youthful than the Burgundian classics.

Jancis said she viewed the world’s growing interest in pinot as a search for lighter, more refreshing wines. She then moved on to the event’s theme – does good pinot result from nature or nurture – to be addressed in a series of masked tastings.

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at these and review a range of very different and very exciting pinot noirs.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009

Sauvignon Blanc. Kath and Kym call it sauvignon plonk. Others call it cat’s pee. Over a glass or two, someone commented that it tasted like it’d been drunk before. The late Len Evans listed it with goat’s cheese among his pet hates. And England’s wine luminary, Jancis Robinson, once wrote that its ranking amongst the world’s nine ‘classic’ varieties came only because of its ‘divine combination with semillon in parts of Bordeaux’.

But whether you call it cat’s pee or dog’s nectar it’s now our biggest selling white wine style. Sauvignon blanc pipped chardonnay by 23.5 million litres to 22.5 million litres in the year to September 2008, according to AC Nielsen figures cited by Jeni Port in the Sydney Morning Herald on 25 January.

While wine show judges almost invariably find sauvignon classes disappointing, populated by weedy, tart wines, sprinkled with one or two juicy highlights. Despite all the sauvignon put downs, Aussie drinkers love the variety – notably as a straight varietal from Marlborough, New Zealand or, from Margaret River, Western Australia, blended with semillon.

Almost twenty years ago, Jancis Robinson wrote “Sauvignon blanc produces wines for our times: white, dry, refreshingly zesty, aggressively recognisable and ready to drink almost before the presses have been hosed down after the vintage”. Her words seem even more on the money now than they did in 1986.

And the word from retailers and producers throughout this decade was that sauvignon blanc and blends were the fastest growing segment in the domestic wine market. As far back as April 2004, national retailer, Vintage Cellars (part of the then Coles Myer Group) reported that sauvignon blanc constituted just one twenty fifth of Australia’s grape crush but represented one sixth of its white wine sales.

This suggested a dash into sauvignon blanc by Australia’s keenest wine drinkers. Even if New Zealand led the way the sustained growth in sauvignon blanc demand showed up, too, at Australia’s grape crushers. In 2002 we harvested 28, 567 tonnes of it. But that had increased to 43,107 tonnes in 2004 and to 66,267 tonnes in 2008 – suggesting many hectares of plantings coming on stream to meet rising demand.

So why the rise in popularity of sauvignon blanc? I suspect it’s the exciting quality of straight varietals from Marlborough and blends from Western Australia delivering what Jancis described 20 years ago, “dry, refreshingly zesty, aggressively recognisable and ready to drink almost before the presses have been hosed down”.

It seems that sauvignon blanc has found its niche as a fruity, zesty undemanding white well suited to our warm climate and casual dining habits – capturing what might have been riesling’s role. Alas, poor riesling.

Twenty years ago with a stronger Aussie dollar and a dearth of local material, the most loved sauvignons were those imported from Pouilly and Sancerre at the eastern end of France’s Loire Valley. Magically fruity with a minerally, bone dry finish, they reigned until international demand and a weakening dollar pushed them out of reach.

Domestic sauvignons, at the time, came from mainly warm areas and were often made in the ‘fume blanc’ style pioneered by Robert Mondavi in California. These attracted momentary attention but were by and large over oaked and lacking varietal flavour.

By the mid eighties Australians had begun to enjoy the first in-your-face Marlborough sauvignon blancs. These offered pungent, capsicum-like aromas and flavours in tandem with high natural acidity – the product of Marlborough’s very cool climate, a pre condition for good sauvignon.

A quarter of a century on and Marlborough’s the world capital of sauvignon, having spread from a few vineyards at the southern cooler side of the Wairau valley to the warmer northern side and to the even cooler Awatere Valley, over the Wither Hills to the south.

The resulting diversity of sites, viticultural practice and winemaking preferences means a great diversity of Marlborough styles today. In general that means zesty, fresh, well-defined varietal flavours. But the varietal spectrum varies from the riper citrus and tropical fruit character of warmer sites to the old in-your-face capsicum-like ones.

Australian sauvignon blanc hasn’t found its Marlborough yet. But it has found a comfortable home in the Adelaide Hills. Like Marlborough the Adelaide Hills region is far from homogenous climatically. But selected sites do bring home the bacon.

And at Margaret River in the west, where sauvignon blanc seldom makes it on its own, semillon steps in to fatten out the mid palate and add a lovely citrus note without detracting from the racy freshness of sauvignon blanc.
These range from ever popular ‘classic dry white’ styles like those from Evans & Tate and others at modest prices to the seamless glory of Cullens or Cape Mentelle Sauvignon Blanc Semillon (among others) – in the Bordeaux style praised by Jancis Robinson.

With a few exceptions like the Cullens wine, though, these are wines to chill, quaff and enjoy by the bucketful. Then back up for the new vintage as soon it hits the shelves.

This very big swing in popular taste, however, spells trouble for local chardonnay growers, especially in the face of collapsing export demand.

But the Kiwi sauvignon blanc growers won’t have it all their way either.  The amazing twenty-year boom appears to be at an end.  The variety now accounts for two thirds of all whites produced in New Zealand.

But economic weakness in its biggest export markets, Britain, Australia and America (in that order), combined with rising production, suggests that prices will fall this year. Retailers expect the price of branded Marlborough sauvignon blanc to decline and that we’ll see a rising number of bargain-basement clean skins from the region.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2009