Point made as NZ winemaker stuns Britain's biggest wine buffs
British wine experts were left dumbstruck by a Hawke's Bay winery that went head-to-head with some of the greats in a blind tasting in London.
Craggy Range winemaker Rod Easthope took six 2005 and 2006 blends to the taste-off to compete with six 2005 clarets.
According to The Daily Telegraph’s wine writer, Jonathan Ray, none of the 30 UK wine masters, including Jancis Robinson, sommeliers, Wine Society buffs and wine journalists were told anything else about the dozen vintages they were sampling at the event at NZ House.
When the scores were collated, the French took the first three places as well as number five, the Kiwis four and six– a creditable showing drawing polite applause.
Then the bombshell, as the Telegraph put it, when it was revealed “who was playing for the Bordeaux team.”
They included such illustrious names as Chateau Lafite-Rothschild selling at £975 a bottle ($NZ2565), Chateau Mouton-Rothschild ($NZ1775) and Chateau Angelus ($NZ775).
Fifth spot went to Chateau Haut-Brion selling at NZ$1850 a bottle.
The NZ plonk was somewhat more modestly priced.
Fourth place went to Sacred Hill Helmsman at $NZ47 a bottle while Newton Forrest Cornerstone, costing $NZ39, came sixth.
Ray, in his article headed “NZ red wine: icons of the future?” wrote that the tasters were left open-mouthed and there was the sound of “jaws crashing to the floor.”
“The result was astonishing, to say the least,” he wrote.
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Comments and questions8
And savouring the wine. Well done the Kiwi Wine Industry especially to the Sacred Hill team - one of my personal favourite vineyards.
And don't we all just love sticking it too those arrogant French chaps ??
Price is a very poor indicator of quality
Brilliant approach...high risk but innovative.
You deserve accolades....now raise the prices.
NZ wines priced about right! French wineries heavily into gouging the market!
How long before we see the protectionists in France start sharpening their knives against NZ wines alleging "dumping"?
Well done the NZ wine industry!
Errrr read this the other way - 4 of the top 5 wines were the highly priced French wines (as one would expect), and only 1 of the top 5 wines was the moderately priced NZ wines. And this is a surprise? If 3 of the top 5 were Kiwi THEN I would have been suprised.
As any wine buff will tell you generally the difference in quality between a $10 and a $40 bottle of wine is far far greater than the difference between a $50 and a $500 bottle of wine. At price points above $50 you are really talking about relatively small improvements in quality.
I dare say you could have done the same exercise with S.African, Chilean or Argentinian wine (for example) and found similar results. The fact is that the top French blends are not priced as they are because they are so much better than the competition - they aren't. They are priced as they are because of miniscule supply, rarity factor, the 'collectors' factor, decades of historical 'lineage' etc.
Well done Rod! Nice PR work. These sort of steps are important in raising our quality profile.
To Tony Bish (Sacred Hill Winemaker) and the rest of the Kiwi wines on parade at the tasting. Yet another stunning example of how NZ is coming into it's own in a worldwide industry!!!
I couldn't afford the stuff even if I wanted to drink it.
From what I can make of the wine business, it is 90% snobbery.
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