Revolutions don’t normally happen at New Zealand House in London, but a small one happened on a February morning in 1985. British wine writers and merchants gathered to taste wines from a dozen different NZ wineries and were stunned by the range and quality of what they were tasting. Above all, they were astonished at the Sauvignon from Marlborough. It had that powerful gooseberry and fresh cut grass flavour, maybe elderflower and grapefruit, that we now recognise as uniquely Sauvignon. People who don’t like it say it tastes of cat’s pee. The tasters knew the wines from the upper Loire and from Bordeaux – all made with Sauvignon – but until then it had been thought of as a grape without much character, which only made good wine if the terroir contributed the character that the grape lacked. The power of Marlborough Sauvignon was especially surprising when you realise that the first vines were only planted in 1973. The most famous of the Marlborough vineyards, Cloudy Bay, only planted Sauvignon in 1986. Before that they bought their grapes from other vineyards. Continue reading Will the real Sauvignon Blanc please stand up? →