KEY POINTS:
Herald wine writer Joelle Thomson says the sauvignon blanc furore is a blow, not just to the highly regarded Wither Hills label but to the $1 billion wine industry itself.
"It's a shame that what is arguably the sweetheart of this country's wine industry, Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc, has drawn negative attention to itself," she says.
"It calls into question the practices of an industry that has built its reputation entirely on a foundation of high quality."
New Zealand made just 0.1 per cent of all of the world's wine, but because of the high quality of our products it commanded the highest price per litre of any wine sold in Britain.
Thomson said that since winemaker Brent Marris sold Wither Hills to Lion Nathan four years ago his big-name brand had gone from strength to strength, gaining an international reputation for having that unique Marlborough flavour, high quality and, most importantly, consistency.
This is the third wine scandal to hit New Zealand's industry in less than a decade following a clampdown on the widespread watering down of wines in the early 1980s.
In 1998, exported wine from Coopers Creek was found to be not true to the label, prompting a call from the Consumers' Institute to "recognise this label fraud for what it is, and stop buying Coopers Creek wines".
Also that year, the now-defunct Lintz Estate returned a gold medal won at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards for its 1997 shiraz, because the judged wine differed from that sold in shops.
Thomson said the furore was certainly a fall from grace for Wither Hills because consumers could not be sure which version of the wine they were buying.
"Is that bottle of 2006 Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc down at the nearest New World or Foodtown the gold-medal version, the silver-medal version or something else?"
The admission by a large New Zealand winery that the same label was used for different wines was both farcical and sad.
