UK flooded with ‘soulless’ NZ Sauvignon

The UK wine market remains flooded with “soulless” New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc according to one of the key winemakers in Marlborough.

Marlborough

Speaking to the drinks business, Matt Patterson-Green, chief winemaker at Jackson Estate, said: “A lot of the New Zealand Sauvignon coming over to the UK and flooding the market in the lower to mid tier is soulless.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s technically correct, but it’s boring. It’s a flow on from the oversupply of 2008 where we went from not having enough wine to having too much.

“At that time a lot of fruit was harvested that shouldn’t have been, leading to an enormous volume of sub-standard NZ Sauvignon Blanc floating around.

“International companies would buy the wine in bulk and label it as Marlborough Sauvignon in order to trade off the brand strength when in reality it was blended and bottled in Australia and Germany.”

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Patterson-Green told db that the wine glut also led to “a lot of cowboys entering the game at the bottom end, including doctors and lawyers who knew nothing about wine keen to make a quick buck.”

“Fortunately a lot of them have since left, but the New Zealand wine industry was on the brink of a shaky slope to disaster,” he said.

In a bid to distance himself and Jackson Estate from the sea of mediocre Sauvignon in the market, Patterson-Green shies away from making fruit bombs.

“I’m not interested in making pungent fruit bombs that taste like sucking on an acid drop – we don’t do recipe winemaking but instead celebrate vintage variation,” he said.

“At Jackson Estate I’m seeking tertiary aromas and more of an Old World style of Sauvignon from a New Zealand viewpoint,” he added.

As for the cork vs. screw cap argument, Patterson-Green is firmly in the screw cap camp. “We started bottling under screw cap in 2001. I recently tasted one of our 2001 Sauvignons bottled under cork and it tasted like an overblown Chardonnay.

“The 2001 SB under screw cap meanwhile, tasted fresh as a daisy and had wonderful aromas of gooseberry jam. It was still very much alive and recognisable as that wine,” he said.

Patterson-Green is also a trumpet blower for Marlborough Pinot Noir, with Pinot production at Jackson Estate having leapt from 4% to 15%.

“Marlborough Pinot is perceived as being a light, almost rosé-like red, but I want the region to be recognised as one of the best in the country for Pinot Noir,” he said.

“We need to break the mold and prove we’re more than just a one-trick pony. It’s starting to happen – there are some very smart Pinots and Chardonnays coming out of Marlborough now,” he added.