Just a quick post as time is short. Had a busy day tasting and discussing Sauvignon Blanc yesterday at the Brancott Estate Heritage Centre with winemakers Patrick Materman and Jamie Marfell.

Among other things, we looked at a selection of recent vintages of the classic Brancott Estate Sauvignon Blanc, which is a a million case brand, but which is remarkably good and of late has been better than ever. It has benefited significantly from the research findings on Sauvignon that have come from the New Zealand Wine Growers-supported initiative.

Pernod Ricard NZ, owners of Brancott, have been heavily involved in this project as an industry partner, and are doing quite a bit of research activity themselves. This is what I’ll be looking at today.

They have been developing an icon Sauvignon Blanc program, and we tasted components of the 2009 and 2011 icon project. This was really interesting and sparked a lot of discussion. More later…