While Sauvignon Blanc grapes can be found on both of New Zealand’s main islands, they’re the leader in Marlborough on the South Island. The region gets a lot of sunshine, but also has a heavy ocean influence and very cool nights. This helps the wines offer that ripe tropical fruit balanced by lots of refreshing acidity. Looking for some good ones to taste? Seek out bottles from Dog Point Vineyard and Mohua.
While you’re mostly likely to find New Zealand wines offering the tangy, aromatic style of Sauvignon Blanc, some producers are branching off. A few winemakers are following in the footsteps of those producers in Bordeaux and the Loire (such as Didier Dagueneau), fermenting or aging the wines in oak barrels. Want to try? Look to Cloudy Bay’s Te Koko bottling. The wine is fermented in oak barrels and then the bottles are kept in the cellar for three years before being released. While Te Koko has all the fresh acidity of Sauvignon Blanc, it’s a complex and amazingly textured wine. Rather than the typical passion fruit and grapefruit scent, you’ll get a little gentle apricot, lemon pith, and ginger. Wines like this show that New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc still has some tricks up its sleeve. While Sauvignon Blanc dominates the NZ white wine scene, Chardonnay is the pretty younger sibling who’s just waiting to getting noticed. Many Chardonnays from New Zealand exhibit a depth and brightness akin to White Burgundy. Despite being a new world wine region, the Chardonnays of New Zealand don’t have too much in common with, say, riper examples from California.
