To answer a question from a reader the other day, “Why don’t you score wines?” The answer is I simply believe scoring wine or ratings methods are completely flawed. Read More >

The dynamic and inexhaustible Austrian wine marketer, Michael Thurner, of Austria Fine Brands, is on the campaign trail in Singapore again and back by popular demand, the Austrian Wine Festival 2012.

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2009 Villa Russiz Sauvignon – Collio, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

2010 Sugarloaf Ridge Sauvignon Blanc – Hobart, Tasmania

As we wing our way from Melbourne to Singapore the wine list on SQ228 has me corned into a sauvignon blanc… a Tinpot 2008 from Marlborough purported to be “atypical as the grapes are predominantly from Blind River in the Awatere Valley which is drier and less fertile than the main valley floor. The result is a lively wine with strong lemony character, bracing acidity, pronounced minerality and overall freshness”.

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We see a lot of Michael Hill-Smith MW in Singapore, here regularly for marathon tastings with Singapore Airlines as part of their wine panel.  There is also his annual release of Shaw & Smith wines with a tried and tested formula of an informal tasting of the new releases with Dim Sum, religiously attended by trade for both libation and appreciation of his penetrating candidacy on the wines and insightful words on Australian wine industry.

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Cloudy Bay may have put a certain white wine and a region on the map but Australian expertise started the trend.

Despite being shunned by wine buffs and recalcitrant writers such as myself, sauvignon blanc remains the world’s most popular white grape variety and has been for more than a decade, dismissing any notion it is a passing trend. While there is no sign of sauvignon blanc’s prevalence waning, overconfident producers should not be complacent. As witnessed in the past, entrenched styles and fashionable varieties can easily become passe.

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Curiosity gets the better of Curtis Marsh who lines up for a sauvignon blanc tasting, with surprising results.

How would you like to try no less than 50 sauvignon blanc’s before lunch?

It was a daunting prospect, even for a hardened wine professional. Personally, I am not endeared to sauvignon blanc, although I do enjoy the occasional racy, flinty sancerre blanc from the Loire Valley. Putting aside the notion of a monotonous succession of nostril-twitching grassy, herbaceous bouquets and gum nagging acidity, the opportunity to taste so many examples of this variety from all over the world got the better of my curiosity.

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Best Bordeaux Recipe, Barrel-Fermented Semillon Sauvignon Blanc of Year

Winery Profile

With a bevy of praiseworthy wineries, contention over the pecking order of Margaret River labels is constant and subjective. However, a small producer called Arlewood is materializing as the sleeper of the region and making infinitely more complex and refined white wines in the Graves style.

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Two offerings from the legendary Loire Valley vigneron Henri Bourgeois: 2007 Pouilly-Fume and Sancerre Les Baronnes.

This is about as classic as food and wine pairings gets; blatantly simply nonetheless, as any professional chef will tell you, the most satisfying gastronomic pleasures are an invariably a combination of the very best seasonal fresh produce and minimal cooking technique. Ironically, such purity and wholesomeness is frustratingly illusive.

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If there’s one white grape variety that has found its nirvana in the tropical climates of Asia, it would have to be sauvignon blanc, where practically every day is a ‘crisp white, summers drinking day’.

If I were a sauvignon blanc producer I would be focusing my attention and campaigning harder on this part of the world rather than seasonally dependent traditional markets. And that’s exactly what savvy Austrian wine producers are doing, with a youthful and energetic Armin Tement from Weingut Tement beating the feet around Asia recently and visiting Singapore on-route.

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Sugarloaf Ridge vineyard is a family owned vineyard begun in 1998 by Dr Simon Stanley. Simon’s daughter and her husband, Julian and Kristin Colvile, formerly long time habitants of Hong Kong, assumed ownership in 2007 and are now on Sugarloaf’s 8th vintage and each one has been award winning! The vineyard is positioned at 42 degrees south (the same as Marlborough and correspondingly in the northern hemisphere, southern Burgundy).

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