Grapes and Wine Styles

Sauvignon blanc made Marlborough famous, but the region's cellar holds more than one voice. Pinot noir has grown here since the first experimental plantings of the 1970s, the aromatic whites follow the valley floor in ribbons of riesling, gewürztraminer and pinot gris, and the traditional method sparkling wines of the last three decades now stand comparison with much older names. This section reads them one by one.

What this section covers

Each guide takes a grape or a family of styles and asks the same questions: what does the variety do in this particular cool, sunny, stony valley, how is it made here, what does it taste like in the glass, and how should it be kept and poured. The answers differ more than visitors expect. The same valley that produces the loudest sauvignon blanc on earth also produces sparkling wine built on patience and riesling that needs a decade to say everything it has to say.

The four guides

• Marlborough sauvignon blanc explains the passionfruit and cut grass character, the tank and barrel routes, and how a single crossing came to own a valley.
• Marlborough pinot noir profiles the valley floor style and sets it beside Central Otago and Martinborough.
• Riesling, gewürztraminer and pinot gris sorts the three aromatics apart, scent by scent, with dryness scales and food matches.
• Traditional method sparkling wine follows the second fermentation in bottle, the lees, the riddling racks and the dosage.

Why varieties behave differently here

A grape variety is a set of tendencies, and the ground decides which of them appear. In the Wairau Valley the tendencies bend towards aromatics and acidity: nights are cool even at the height of summer, so the grapes hold their acid while the sun stacks up the flavour precursors. The stones of the old riverbed warm through the day and give the heat back at night, and the free draining soils keep vine vigour in check. The soils guide and the geography guide tell that story from the ground up.

Buying the styles well

Price follows fame, and in this region fame follows sauvignon blanc, which makes the other three categories the bargains. Aromatic whites from strong vintages routinely outperform their price tags because the market prices them as second wines; sparkling made the traditional way costs a fraction of imported champagne on the same shelf; and valley pinot noir undercuts its Central Otago rivals while the argument about which region is better continues. The sauvignon buyer's real choice is between the tank made style for immediate drinking and the barrel fermented one for a year or five of patience, a decision the cellaring guide makes concrete. Whatever the choice, the vintage year on the bottle remains the cheapest information on the shelf, and it is free.

Reading beyond the variety

Variety tells a buyer what a wine might taste like; vintage and winemaking decide what it actually tastes like. A sauvignon blanc from a warm, early year reads riper than the same wine from a cool one, and a barrel fermented parcel reads weightier than a tank made one in every vintage. The vintage report guide gives the year its full weight, and the cellaring guide answers the question that follows the purchase: when to open it.