New Zealand - Wines to bore or wines to pour?

I went to the annual New Zealand Wine Fair in Dublin last week. This Fair traditionally 'kicks off' the tasting season. It's usually lively, fairly packed and great fun. This year it wasn't so packed. Is this a result of the recession or is it a sign that NZ has offered all it has to offer and the excitement has gone elsewhere?

Over the years I have been a critic of the one horse wine trick NZ has foisted onto us. Sauvignon Blanc with a grassy edge - crisp, lively, mouth watering, ripe, herbaceous, fresh cut grass, warm tropical glasshouse aromas, clean, exciting, wine bars, young wine drinkers, fun, white wine. Many wine stores carried differing labels but similar wines in the bottles. Lot's of simple clean herbaceous fun. We were asked to pay above the odds for such simple pleasures. Up to last year we had no problem splashing out 12 to 15 hard earned spondooliks for this aperitif styled wine. We struggled to spend this amount on any other country of origin.

As a critic yearning to find something other than simple pleasures I went looking for other styles in NZ. Over the past few years wine makers in NZ have been making some fine wine that no-one has been too interested in buying! When I first tasted red wines from the Gimblett Gravels I reckoned NZ had come of age. (I went further and championed wines out of the Mills Reef winery up at Tauranga on the North Island - I see that last year the Preston family of Mills Reef picked up (once again) The Brigato Champion Cabernet Sauvignon for their Elspeth 2006 from Hawkes Bay.)

But, regardless of how brilliant these wines are, I'm still waiting. Sauvignon Blanc is still the only grape selling.

Last year almost 90% of all wine exports ex NZ was of Sauvignon Blanc with Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris the ONLY other varieties showing any increase in volume exported year on year! This is incredible. After all last year saw the greatest volume of wine available from NZ ever.

A few observations from last weeks Fair.

Anyone who missed it lost out on a fine opportunity to see

Some fantastic wines OTHER than Sauvignon Blanc. I really do like some of their inexpensive Pinot Noir (c €14.00). Also, those brave enough to keep faith with Riesling should be rewarded and as for Frank Nobilo's 2004 Gisborne Vinoptima Gewurztraminer!!

A varied and truly interesting selection of Sauvignon Blanc styles. I can taste a lot of vineyard work now where I used to taste a lot of winery work! Herbal, mineral, tropical and reserved can now be added to my lexicon of New Zealand SB tasting terms. Most consumers won't like this change if its pushed out as a selling tool. It may seem strange but consumer taste profiles for most countries are a few years out of date! If this change in NZ is allowed to develop then I reckon consumer tastes will catch up allowing NZ to have a quality Sauvignon Blanc customer rather than the sheep it has nurtured for the past while.

A wine making nation promising us price increases following this years bonanza. I don't see this happening and so we will soon see brands positioning themselves to either be a quality offer or a price offer. If it's the latter it will be Sauvignon Blanc led (in a grassy, ripe style - and boring ) with some 'weak' other varietals in the brand portfolio: if it's the former then it will be defined Sauvignon Blanc showing cutting edge character - worth pouring. It will be accompanied by a portfolio of other varietals that will be hard to ignore.

An extraordinary, and I believe misplaced, belief in Pinot Gris. I don't see the aromatics or the potential of this grape in NZ. At best we will have a few wineries producing memorable wine. The rest will be victims to fashion. Wait until an America soap opera champions another grape variety!

I'm a fan. Bring on next years Fair already!

New Zealand worth pouring - no longer boring.

Twenty Ten Ten Predictions

I'm finally waking up after Christmas! This delay has been forced onto me and many others by our current mini ice age. Who'd have thought we'd see folks skating on the canals! Just goes to show that we often confuse Global Warming with Climate Change. Global Warming does not mean we will grow grapes in Ireland any time soon - Climate Change will scupper that one!

Irish vineyard : Longueville House Mallow Co Cork.

So, if we're not going to begin looking at vineyard sites this year what can we expect to happen in the wine trade?

1. Many restaurants and small wine distributors will pull the shutters down for one last time. This will be dictated by what has happened over the past few years. I'm afraid that no amount of honest endeavour over the next six months can change that. As I have said before, look to your strengths, diversify and amalgamate; don't hang around hoping for things to 'turn a corner'.

2. Riesling will make a long awaited varietal breakthrough. Here we go again. Every year myself, and many others, hope for this. These hopes have been dashed time and again. Why? I reckon because people don't actually like the grape! At my School of Wine last year I subjected my students to Riesling time and again. With Enthusiasm. As they began to give me a strange look I realised the battle was, once again, lost. So, why will they like it this year? I have no idea, but I'm going for it again just so I don't have to serve inferior Albarinho, immature Pinot Gris and rubbish Pinot Grigio.

3. Argentina will not make its long awaited breakthrough. The wines are brilliant and offer fantastic value but no-one can sell them. Even Dunnes Stores who championed the sector only two years ago has drawn its horns in again - remember that fab event on the tall ship 'The Libertad' with Felipe Contepomi in attendance? Clearly something more is needed. No marketing = no sales. Sales depend on pull through as much as push out.

4. Pinot Noir from Chile will do well. One thing I hate is anyone telling me that Chilean Pinot Noir (especially the cheaper stuff) is just not the same, and therefore not as good, as 'Burgundy'. I get this a lot. What a load of codswallop. Chile seems to have brought Pinot Noir along so that it can ripen the grape very well, year on year. This is what good viticulture does. Wine making is a separate issue. Inexpensive varietal Pinot Noir from the likes of Cono Sur is delightful drinking.

5. Australia will have a bumper year. Stocks of the inexpensive sort still seem to be available. Wines of Australia and John McDonnell have put a lot of work into education last year so that we are happy to trade up and to experiment across the varietal feast on offer.

John Duvall at his Shiraz Master Class last year in Dublin

6. Wine schools will prosper. Here's hoping!! I say this because my own bookings have been very strong this Springtime. Let's a face it a six week wine course for €180 will show you about €600 worth of wine, give you six Wine Star glasses for free, provide you with twelve hours worth of entertainment and learning and give you a wine tasting road map that should last you a lifetime. If you're not getting all of this then you're at the wrong school of wine! http://www.kevinecock.ie/

7. Short haul wine travel will take off. It still amazes me that almost no one has been able to stitch the following together

• Most revered vineyards in the world are only two hours out of Dublin airport
• Both Ryanair and Aer Lingus offer fab deals out of Ireland to these regions
• We have no vineyards to speak of in Ireland
• Marketing bodies spend a lot of money every year bringing wine makers and their wines to Ireland for wine fairs that are of little use and are poorly attended.

Roussillon - A short haul from Dublin

8. Lots of wine initiatives will be launched with a green agenda. These have been on the go for a while now with marsh and bog land initiatives, lightweight bottles, barges and wind sail delivery of wine, eco friendly closures, weekly, Nay Daily, organic and biodynamic announcements, zero carbon wineries, recycling and on and on and on. This will begin to become appreciated by consumers. It' s only a shame that our large distributors won't embrace this sort of thing until they see its not going to affect their bottom line. Money grabbing in the Irish wine trade is still confused with good corporate governance. Social and moral responsibility would appear to be words best kept out of our wine board rooms - let's force a change.

9. Hopefully we will see more emphasis placed on bringing wine and food along together. By this I don't mean food and wine matching (which by the way I really feel is overdone and on many occasions a completely pointless and futile exercise! Some of the apps and widgets being pushed around web sites are just plain stupid!). No, I mean more cooperation between qualified food and qualified wine writers. How often do we see food writers venturing into wine with no more than a wine menu and a wine book being married together as critique? Equally when some of our wine writers get going on how to prepare their fave food styles they do so with the assurance of someone learning to fry an egg!

Burgundy 2009

10. One of our super markets will change its symbol either through a sell out or through an amalgamation forcing through an extraordinary change in the Irish winescape. This has been on the cards for some time now with rumour and counter rumour. As NAMA settles into our economic reality so will realism. Remember the demise of H Williams, the rise and fall of Quinnsworth, the changes in Superquinn? Yes, these are the new 1980's. I say that this will be good for the wine trade. It was in the past. Many good guys fell but the trade grew and grew into areas unthought of. The same will begin all over again in 2010 or two thousand and ten or whatever you're having yourself.

Is it true that a red tasting room will make wines appear sweeter?

Happy New Year

Kevin