We've long been a fan of New Zealand wine, especially the Sauvignon Blanc - En Zed whites are mostly all we get in the States - but we've added some new favorites since we've arrived here, with our Marlborough trip helping to cement them. Besides the "Savvy," as the Kiwis call it, in the past we've also enjoyed drinking the unoaked Chardonnays that many wineries here produce (Kim Crawford is a major producer exporting to the U.S. who does one, if you're interested in seeing what we mean), since neither of us can stand the heavy oaking of California Chards. But our newest revelation is oaked Savvy, something that we haven't seen much at all in the States but which we tasted and enjoyed several times in Marlborough. A lot of the wineries that produce them don't export to the U.S., or at least not in any quantity, unfortunately, but one favorite you might look for is from Seresin Estate, whose logo you can see in the picture above.
Another revelation: NZ Rieslings. Neither of us had much of a Riesling palate before coming here - it's not produced that much in California, and we simply haven't tasted enough from Alsace or Germany to appreciate the grape - but we've become big fans of the dry versions produced in this country since we started tasting more. Tonight at dinner, for example, we had one from Te Whare Ra that we've enjoyed before and which was once again excellent.
Finally, we can say we've actually drunk and enjoyed Pinot Noir. I've had a few good Pinots from the States, but despite the incredible marketing effort of Paul Giamatti in Sideways, when sampling the best from Oregon and California there have been many more misses than hits, and Eileen's opinion of the U.S. Pinots is even lower than mine. Not true here. Maybe it's the climate, maybe it's that they're doing it in more of the French Burgundy style, but the Pinot Noirs here definitely have appealed to us more.
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