KEY POINTS:
Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc might be the first name to spring to mind but it is no longer the last word in New Zealand sauvignon blanc.
It still has the X-factor, especially when served with fresh Bluff oysters on a hot summer's day - but there are other lesser-known groundbreaking Marlborough sauvignon blancs. One in particular - and it's no coincidence that it's made by two of the three people responsible for Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc.
Viticulturist Ivan Sutherland and winemaker James Healy, former long-term employees at Cloudy Bay, began their own small winery, Dog Point, five years ago.
Great winemaking is not the only thing they learned at Cloudy Bay. A few weeks ago, as most wineries were racing to get their 2007 wines on the market, Sutherland and Healy released their 2006 Dog Point Section 94 Sauvignon Blanc.
Asked why it was so late to come out, they say that good things take time. Instead of just picking their grapes, crushing them, fermenting them and bottling their sauvignon blanc, they really do take longer to make it - 18 months longer.
The Section 94 sauvignon blanc ferments of its own accord - in other words, on wild yeasts - in old oak barrels, gaining body for those 18 months. And, happily for those of us who enjoy this wine, it doesn't pick up any flavour of oak. What this wine and others show is that there are now several entirely different styles of sauvignon blanc made in New Zealand, mostly in Marlborough.
The big crowd-pleasers at present are the fruit bombs from wineries such as Saint Clair, which at last count had at least 13 different sauvignon blancs.
Most of them brandish gold stickers to remind you - as if you could possibly forget - that they are multiple-medal-winners.
By way of total contrast are the wines from the Awatere Valley, further south and far cooler than most of Marlborough's vineyards. And the wines taste it. The 2006 Vavasour Sauvignon Blanc brings words like austere, pure and fresh to my lips - but not before I've had a second glass.
Then again, if you still love the green gooseberry pungency of sauvignon blanc, there are plenty of wines like that around.
It's hardly surprising there's more than one style of sauvignon blanc today. Ten years ago there were only 262 wineries in this country and today there are 530.
Most have at least two tiers of sauvignon blanc in their range, often three or four. If this doesn't mean diversity will creep in, then I don't know what does.
That there are three different mainstream styles of sauvignon blanc - then others, such as Dog Point Section 94 - is a natural and much needed evolution in an industry heavily reliant on one main success, sauvignon blanc.
As Spencer Tracy's character Adam Bonner, said in Adam's Rib in 1949: "Vive la difference."
In other wine news, two new French wines have landed with The Wine Importer, also known as Paul Mitchell, who lives in West Auckland, buys wine from throughout Europe and sends it to customers here. His two latest: Chateau des Tours Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, $13.50 for a half bottle, brilliant value for a light, subtle dessert wine; 2005 Chateau La Grande Clotte Lussac St Emilion, $26 to $27, a star from Bordeaux. Order by email: paul@wineimporter.co.nz
