Sauvignon Blanc
If you’ve had just one wine from New Zealand, it probably was a Sauvignon Blanc. The grape makes up a mind-boggling 72% of wine production in New Zealand.

Most Sauvignon Blanc is like a friendly puppy—bursting from the glass and ready to play. This is not a wine that makes you hunt for flavors and aromas—they are right up in front, ready to get noticed. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc has the classic herbaceousness of the grape—you might taste a little bell pepper and jalapeño—combined with ripe fruit: think passion fruit and pink grapefruit. These wines are also often compared to gooseberries—small, green fruits that have a burst of tartness just like the wine.

For example, when we talk about white wine from Sancerre in France, we know it is Sauvignon Blanc without saying it. But in New Zealand, the rules are a little looser, and the grape name will be front and center. When you buy a bottle, you know that at least 85% of the wine is made in the year and from the grape on the label—but that’s about it.

Staring at the New Zealand section of your local wine shop, you’re likely to see a lot of Sauvignon Blanc and maybe a few wines over $25—and all of them have screw caps instead of corks. Sauvignon Blanc was a popular premiere, but the New Zealand wine industry has released its sophomore album, and it deserves hit status. Featuring Chardonnay, Pinot, Noir, and more, this small island nation’s wines are ready for you to take notice. Today we’ll introduce you to the area and the different types of wines you’ll find coming from New Zealand.

New Zealand is what what we call a ‘new world’ wine region. Old world wines come from places like France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. When you look at bottles from the Old World, you’re more likely to see a place—a country, a region, or a vineyard—than a grape variety on the label. This practice comes from a long tradition of focusing on place rather than grape—and very strict rules about what you’re allowed to grow where.

The New Zealand wine industry is still in its infancy compared to much of the rest of the wine world. While vines have been on the island for over 150 years, for most of that time the industry was stymied by a temperance movement and phylloxera (an insect that devastated vineyards all over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries). But in the last 15 years, New Zealand’s wine scene has exploded. Plantings of Sauvignon Blanc alone have increased almost five and a half times since 2002.

Since New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, their harvest occurs six months earlier than it happens in vineyards in, say, California. So if you’re shopping in September, you may notice that they’re already selling this year’s wines!

Easy Access
It is very common to find wines from New Zealand sold with screwcaps, also known as Stelvin closures. In fact, about 95% of all New Zealand wine is sealed this way. Why would a producer shy away from cork? The answer is 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA for short. Often transferred to wine through cork closures, this compound imparts aromas and flavors of wet cardboard and musty basement. Not too appetizing, right? The screw cap closure ensures that winemakers aren’t literally pouring their hard work down the drain.

Along with Australia, New Zealand has been a leader in the adoption of screw caps for wines at all price points. Yep—even the fancy stuff from New Zealand will likely not require a corkscrew.

Don’t add whipped cream and fruit until you’re ready to serve.
If you have leftovers, pack the whole thing up in a tupperware and break up the large chunks of meringue. The next day you’ll have icebox cake.
Do you have any favorite pavlova combinations? Any meringue questions left unanswered? Let loose in the comments. Form a shallow crater in the center of the meringue when you put it on the baking sheet. It’ll puff up a little during baking, and the dip with higher sides will form a better cradle for your fruit.
Leave a couple inches breathing room on all sides of your pavlova for expansion in the oven. What do New Zealand wines taste like? For me, the common thread is a sense of freshness, whether you’re drinking a crisp Sauvignon Blanc or a powerful Cabernet Sauvignon blend. Most of the vineyards are never too far from the cooling effect of the ocean, preserving acidity in the wines—this brightness leaves you ready for more after each sip.

macerated kumquatsStill having trouble nailing down a pavlova that’s right for you? Here are some of my favorites:

Orange blossom-flavored meringue, chocolate whipped cream, blood orange segments, pomegranate molasses
Rose-flavored meringue with white wine vinegar, plain cream, red wine-soaked strawberries and macerated kumquats
Bourbon meringue, maple cream, sliced assorted plums
Apple cider vinegar meringue, sour cream whipped cream, cubed apples caramelized in butter
General Pavlova Tips and Tricks
As you make your pavlova, it’s worth keeping some basics in mind.

While making the meringue:

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper for easy meringue removal.
If your recipe calls for drawing an X-inch circle on your parchment to guide your meringue formation, don’t bother—presumably you have this circle thing figured out by the time you’re old enough to read blogs.
If you’re using a rimmed baking sheet, flip it upside down and bake the meringue on the other side. Then you can slide the meringue right on to a serving platter without any lip.

Open your oven door as little as possible. Temperature changes causes the meringue to crack, and letting cold air from outside the oven will do just that. If cracks happen, the meringue will still be tasty, but less pretty.
If the pavlova is starting to brown at all, reduce your oven temperature by 25 degrees. The ideal pavlova is totally pale, which usually means a gooey marshmallow interior.
Once your pavlova has finished baking, let it cool completely in the oven to avoid cracking. Ideally you’ll do this with the oven door completely closed, but if you’re in a hurry, bundle up a small wad of paper towel or aluminum foil to leave it slightly ajar.
After baking:

If your meringue cracked, that’s okay! You’re covering it with a quart of whipped cream and a pound of fruit anyway. Messy is delicious.
Let your meringue cool completely before topping. It can be made a day or two in advance if the air isn’t too humid.

Sauces and Toppings
All a pavlova really requires is meringue, cream, and fruit, but a little sauce goes a long way. In that strawberry-kumquat pavlova there’s a topping of red wine syrup made from simmering the strawberry soaking wine with the syrup from the macerated kumquats. But you can also opt for ready-made syrups like pomegranate molasses and balsamic vinegar: Their thick texture keeps them clinging to the top of the cream but their tartness lightens up the whole dessert. Syrups like these also give you another way to add tartness to the pavlova if your fruit is low in acidity.

Crunchy textures also keep pavlovas interesting, so think of adding things like pomegranate seeds, toasted nuts, and cracked-up candy brittle. Look for accents that compliment and contrast your fruit: almonds with apricots, pistachios with citrus, pomegranate with apples. I’ll give a special shout out to pomegranates as well: the jewel-like nubs are the perfect pavlova accent, both for their tartness and their crunchy texture.

The Fruit
Here’s where you really get to let loose. Berries are fine, but stone fruit, tart citrus, and cooked fruit are more interesting additions. Here’s my main guiding principle: Tartness and texture make the best pavlovas. One of my favorites is a dead-simple vanilla meringue with sweet whipped cream and ruby grapefruit segments. Pavlovas are sweet—there’s no way getting around that—and any possible tartness you can add will make them all the more appealing.

So in the fall I use plenty of late-season stone fruit like plums. In winter, it’s all about citrus—grapefruit and blood oranges especially—and cooked cranberries, too. Harder fruits like apples and pears are great when cubed and cooked in a little butter until just soft. And if you’re going for summer berries, consider ways to make them more interesting. The photo at the very top shows a pavlova with strawberries soaked in red wine and jumbled with macerated kumquats; the mix was tart, tannic, and only a little sweet.

Traditionally, pavlova is made with a French meringue (that is, one with sugar beaten into raw egg whites, then baked) that’s cooked in the oven for a long time, about an hour, at a very low temperature to dry it out. The exterior should be crisp and totally pale and the interior should have a fluffy, marshmallowy texture. The cooled meringue is then topped with whipped cream and fruit right before being served to your adoring fans. It’s light and sweet, and since it’s fruity, it feels a lot “healthier” than it really is.

Pavlovas can be portioned into single servings but can also be fashioned into meringue mountains. My six egg white pavlova, which is a scaled-up version of this recipe with some minor modifications, serves 15 to 20. I love that I can make it for about a dollar a head and that I’m not locked into any one flavor profile—each pavlova component can be played with at will. And since I always seem to have egg whites lying around, pavlova is a handy way to use them up in bulk.

The Meringue
The meringue base is the easiest part of a pavlova to flavor, but also the most overlooked. Dry spices and small amounts of liquid flavorings work best. Our recipe calls for cream of tartar in the meringue, an acid that makes the foam more stable, but I usually use a little wine vinegar (red or white) or apple cider vinegar for a subtle fruity flavor. Use slightly more vinegar than an equivalent volume of cream of tartar, but not much—three quarters of a teaspoon instead of a half, perhaps.

Rose and orange blossom waters are also ideal, but best used sparingly (one teaspoon at most). Vanilla extract is a given. I’ve also had success adding booze like bourbon, but if you add too much, you may be facing extra mixing time. One meringue with two or three eyeballed shots of bourbon took a full 20 minutes to form, though form it did.