Oz Clarke on Appellation Marlborough's 2021 Sauvignon Blancs

I almost feel as though 2021 is the year when Marlborough re-discovered its soul. Too many recent vintages, particularly of Sauvignon Blanc, have yielded too many rather aimless wines that seemed unsure of what they were trying to achieve, or wines that seemed almost perversely determined to deny the fabulously enticing fruit quality that wine lovers around the world crave in Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Had Marlborough lost confidence in itself to do what it can do so brilliantly – produce the best, snappiest, most tingling and scented Sauvignon in the world? 

Well, nature gives and nature takes away. 2021 Sauvignons are truly delicious. But there aren’t enough bottles to go around. New Zealand has been suffering from climate change like everyone else, and the already dry Marlborough region has had three drought years in a row. You might say – oh, but they can irrigate, the Wairau aquifer is one of the most plentiful in the world. Up to a point. You’ve got to have water coming off the hills and mountains upstream to fill the aquifer. This supply has been under increasing threat for some years, although, thankfully, 2021 wasn’t too bad. But there are many parts of Marlborough desperately dependent on irrigation. As the flows drop in rivers like the Wairau and Awatere, it becomes ever more difficult to access extra water and raise a decent crop.

But that’s a long term challenge. 2021 had more immediate issues. The world was already complaining in 2020 that there wasn’t enough Sauvignon to go around. So what we didn’t need was icy cold nights and frosts in September and even October, which hammered some vineyards quite badly, some less so.

Come December you want warm settled weather for your vines to flower and set a good crop of grapes. This didn’t happen. Erratic weather and cold nights meant that the flowering was all over the place, and bunches were very irregular.

So you know the number of berries on the vine is going to be compromised. What you then don’t want is a droughty, windy summer which means the berries you do have are going to be small and low on juice. And 2021 was Marlborough’s 3rd consecutive year of drought. All of which meant a ridiculously early harvest, but there’ll be about 40% less Marlborough Sauvignon on sale from 2021.

Any good news? Yes. The stuff’s fantastic. It’s not often I say – rush out and buy some Sauvignon before the stocks run out – but this year you’ll have to. Stocks of the best wines WILL run out. Once people try one bottle they’ll be leaping for their credit cards to secure more. And technically you could age quite a few of these, but take one more gulp of these gorgeous liquids and you’ll be saying – why would I want to?

Link to full article: https://threewinemen.co.uk/oz-clarke-on-marlborough-new-zealand-blanc-2021-the-stuffs-fantastic/