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3 March 2009

Hawke’s Bay wines compare well against international rivals

A first time visit by an American wine writer has left him excited about the Hawke’s Bay wines he has tasted, and making comparisons with Bordeaux for the reds and California for our Chardonnays.

Patrick Comiskey is a senior correspondent for Wine & Spirit Magazine US, a regular contributor to the food section of the Los Angeles Times, and the wine section in the San Francisco Chronicle, plus a columnist with Wine Review Online.

He was a guest of Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers Inc. recently and in addition to an overview regional wine tasting at the organisation’s Hawke’s Bay Opera House office, he visited a number of wineries and met with local winemakers.

“It’s a treat to find a region that is able to produce red wines that have full ripeness without the levels of excess common to Australian and Napa Valley wines.  There’s a sturdy intensity but I like the restraint shown here,” Mr Comiskey said.  “There’s a lot to compare Hawke’s Bay with Bordeaux, with a real throughline minerality and impressive structure well built to age very gracefully.”

Mr Comiskey’s comments were in line with results from a recent blind tasting exercise held in London that saw wines from Hawke’s Bay Gimblett Gravels out performing Bordeaux wines ten times as expensive.

The judges, who included Jancis Robinson MW, Oz Clarke, Michael Schuster and Neal Martin, were asked to select their top six from 12 anonymously presented wines, of which half came from Gimblett Gravels and half from Bordeaux.  While the Bordeaux wines gained the most votes overall, two Gimblett Gravels entries made it into the top half - Sacred Hill Helmsman 2006, and Newton Forrest Cornerstone 2006.

Commenting on the similarities in the style of the wines, Jancis Robinson said, “It was not obvious which was which.”

Based on his tasting in Hawke’s Bay, Mr Comiskey was also enthusiastic about some of the region’s white wines.  “I’m especially charmed by the Chardonnays.  What I’ve tasted is luscious, with a generous sexy mouth feel that’s energetic and refreshing,” he said, adding that Hawke’s Bay, in his experience, was the first wine region to demonstrate the same warmth in its wine as that found in California wine.

Mr Comiskey was in New Zealand attending the Central Otago Pinot Noir Celebrations and took advantage of the opportunity to travel the country exploring our wine regions.

ENDS
For further information contact:
Lyn Bevin
Executive Officer, Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers Inc.,Phone 876 3418 or 027 621 7891

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