“Drink these and then you don’t have to listen to me any more!”  Thus Matt Thomson announcing the last two wines of his forthright, funny and fascinating tasting of New Zealand wine. From the near-capacity audience came a collective ‘aaah’ of regret. Matt and his wines (and the prices he offered us on his wines) were simply too good to ignore.

Like many other Australian and New Zealand wine makers, Matt makes wine not only in New Zealand but also in France, Spain and Italy. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches and this expertise has produced some stunning wines for the Saint Clair label in Marlborough. He knows he’s got real advantages there, notably “grapes that are easy to make wine with”. Harvest time tends to be dry and there’s plenty of wind to dry the grapes – which means that the problems of mould or rot are far less than in Europe. Marlborough is cool and dry with a huge diurnal temperature range – perfect for grapes.

But the bright and vivid fruit that he gets is not just climate. It’s down to technical command of viticulture and vinification; picking at precisely the right moment, picking at night to keep the grapes cool, keeping fermentation temperatures warmer for Pinot Noir to maximise the aromatics, avoiding the problems with brettanomyces that he reckons may be about to rock Burgundy, using screwcaps to minimise the damage to the wine.

Like Nigel Greening (formerly of Felton Road) he’s absolutely convinced that screwcaps are the best answer for all wines. “I hate corks, he said, dirty pieces of bark you bung in a bottle. And they don’t WORK.” His view is that around 1/3rd of all wines is damaged to a degree by cork taint, though it’s hard to spot unless you taste each bottle against a reference wine – and have high sensitivity to this odour.

The other point he returned to as we tasted our way through the range of 10 wines was the impact of soil type and location on flavour. We started with two Sauvignon Blancs both made in exactly the same way but the with very different flavour profiles. The first, the single vineyard St Clair Block 19, headlined passion fruit and boxwood (the polite way of saying fresh sweat) but added pink grapefruit, a touch of blackcurrant and spice. The second, Tinpot Hut Sauvignon Blanc, is blended from fruit from two sites: silty soils in Lower Wairau giving more tropical character and the more mineral soils of the Awatere Valley imparting a more herbaceous note.

Then two Chardonnays; the Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay of 2007 and the St Clair Omaka Chardonnay of 2009. The Kumeu River vineyard is near Auckland in the warmer and more humid North Island and Matt was generous in his praise of Mike Brajkovich who uses indigenous yeasts and homogenously blended juice and lees to produce a rich, clean barrel aged wine with tightly knit tropical fruit and intriguing ‘struck match’ notes from the oak. The St Clair wine was bigger (14.5% alcohol versus 13.5% for Kumeu River) and richer, slightly smoky oak with ripe peaches and citrus flavours and a creamy /waxy finish.

Then we moved on to Pinot Noir. Four wines in total – two at around £12 and two at list prices of around £40. Matt said that to make Pinot Noir he has to ‘think like a cook’ – balancing the different flavour influences. An element of whole bunch fermentation adds complexity and longevity and makes the Pinot characteristics last longer. It also accentuates fruit tannins rather than oak tannins which are less integrated. He uses low toast French oak (never American – it’s ’too sweet’) to balance the subtle flavours of Pinot. The Hatters Hill 2008 was more direct; the St Clair Doctors Creek 2009 more seductive and feminine (doesn’t mean ‘moody, tart and bitter’ he stressed). The latter wine – a previous vintage won the IWC International Pinot trophy – was lighter, silkier, a bit less tannic and, like so many apparently delicate Pinots, set for the long haul. It would, he reckoned, improve for 5 years and keep for at least another ten. All for just over £11.
The two more expensive Pinots were from Ata Rangi (the 2008) and the Felton Road Bannnockburn 2009. Jancis Robinson MW compared the former favourably to Domaine Romanée-Conti (ten times the price) and the Felton Road has had rave Parker reviews. Both were already rich and sweet with concentrated black and red fruit – both had the promise of opening up and great things to come.

As we went through the tasting Matt had stressed how New Zealand was developing its range of wines. He talked about – though didn’t show – a Gruner Veltliner he had made in 2009 and to finish showed us two Syrahs, not a grape typically associated with New Zealand.  Both were Rhone-type wines with subtle flavours, both fermented slightly cooler than the Pinots.  The medium-priced Craggy Range Gimblett Gravels 2009 was complex, minty with touches of pepper and bacon but chunkier tannins (from the gravel soil) than the more expensive Bilancia La Collina of 2006. This final wine has 3% Viognier and, as in the Rhone, this lifts the aromatics. The nose on the La Collina was already fascinating  – eucalyptus, blackcurrant leaf, leather, a touch of white pepper – and it promises to improve much further. Definitely a European rather than Australian style - with the clarity of fruit and minty notes of the best of New World Shiraz but the fruit (rather than oak) tannins of the best European wines. And that best of both worlds is probably where Matt would make his stand. On the evidence it would be hard to disagree. A memorable tasting.      

GH