The textures of New Zealand wines have developed from severe to silky.
From making your mouth pucker in astringent agony to giving it a velvety caress, a wine's tannins can be the source of pleasure or pain. While some of New Zealand's earlier red wines had more grip than a Masonic handshake, there's been a textural revolution in our vineyards that has transported more of our wines into the realms of the silky rather than the severe.
A sensation rather than a flavour, the tannic spectrum is evoked by terms such as chunky, grippy and chewy, to fine, supple and silky. As in a strong cup of tea, which also contains tannins, they produce a drying sensation in the mouth when they react with proteins in the saliva.
This might sound somewhat unappealing, but when tannins are ripe and in balance they play a positive role in the way a wine feels in the mouth, providing structure and, as a preservative, are key in the ageing of reds. They also mellow over time.
As modern wine drinkers don't tend to cellar their reds, most mainstream drops are now made in a softer style for early drinking. The secret's in the skins and pips, which are where most tannin is found. Given these are generally removed early on when making whites, it's red wines that have considerably more tannins than white.
Moves to manage tannins have seen winemakers minimise them by removing skins earlier, softening them using oxygen or fining them out. Hawkes Bay winemaker, Grant Roberts has even devised a way to remove grape pips, which tend impart the most bitter tannins. Work can also be done in the vineyard to influence their levels and quality.
The thicker the grape's skin, the more tannins a variety often has, meaning the likes of cabernet sauvignon, tannat and nebbiolo can often pack a powerful tannic punch, opposed to thinner-skinned varieties such as pinot noir.
Warmer climates can also produce riper and consequently smoother tannins, while in cooler climes like ours, the tannins in some varieties just don't ripen enough, leading to bitter, "green" tasting and astringent wines that never soften.
Cabernet sauvignon used to be the county's main culprit when it came to unripe tannins. However, it's increasingly come to be planted in the warmer sites where it has the best chance of ripening, while it's been overtaken by pinot noir in our cooler vineyards, which doesn't need as much heat to produce silky specimens.
With rough reds largely part of the past in the one-time cabernet country of Hawkes Bay, the region is hoping to tweak its tannins further through its current tannin benchmarking pilot project that it's running in conjunction with the prestigious Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI).
The institute's research plotted tannin against wine quality and discovered that above a certain level of tannin, quality drops off irrespective of the region and grape variety of the wine.
"This indicates there is a quality 'sweet spot' for red wines at high, but not too high tannin levels," notes Hawkes Bay winemaker Peter Cowley of Te Mata. "The pilot project will allow us to assess the profile of our red wines against the research and see how we might adjust our winemaking to fine tune the critical tannin level."
Good news for fans of our fuller-bodied local reds, who in the future can likely look forward to being seduced by rather than subjected to the tannins in our wines.
RED DELICIOUS
SUPPLE CAB SAV
Coopers Creek SV Gimblett Gravels Hawkes Bay Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $28
Cabernet sauvignon is often made more approachable by being blended with softer varieties such as merlot. However, occasionally a Kiwi cabernet sauvignon comes along that's ripe enough to stand alone, such as this rich, blackcurranty example from the warmer Gimblett Gravels' subregion, with its spicy savoury notes and voluptuously velvety tannins. (From Caro's, Kingsland Liquor Centre, selected Liquorland and Glengarry stores, MacGregors, Hamilton Wine Co, and Coopers Creek cellar door.)
BIG BLEND
Kidnapper Cliffs Ariki Merlot Cabernet Franc 2007 $50-$55
This muscular blend from the new collaborative venture between Te Awa and Dry River has dense blackcurrant fruit, licorice, spice and a fresh and powerful stoney undercurrent backed by firm but fine ripe tannins that should keep it in fine fettle for some years to come. (From Caro's and info@kidnappercliffs.com.)
SOFT STYLE
Julicher 99 Rows Martinborough Pinot Noir 2009 $29.95
If big tannins aren't your thing then opt for a softer variety such as pinot noir. This one is particularly silky, with elegant strands of cherry and spice woven round a savoury and lightly gamey core. (From First Glass, Caro's, Glengarry, Wine and More, La Vino, Hamilton Wine Company, Scenic Cellars.)
