HB Chards

Good to see the Sacred Hill Rifleman's top your HB tasting Tom. It has probably been rated NZ's top chard for many years by a lot of people but doesn't get much mention these days.
 
Cheers Kevin. Yes, it's a class act for me, among a dozen extrememly good wines in this selection. It had the combination of fruit weight and density, but fabulous raciness and zest, with enough gravel and flint character for me too. Really some terrific wines in the line-up:

Hawke’s Bay: 12 top 2019 Chardonnays | wine-pages

What a shame that so relatively few of them are availble in the UK.
Yes, quite surprising so few top NZ wines ever get to the UK. I suppose it is assumed the UK market is so European focused they just aren't open to premium wines from elsewhere.
 
Yes, quite surprising so few top NZ wines ever get to the UK. I suppose it is assumed the UK market is so European focused they just aren't open to premium wines from elsewhere.

And perhaps we are just not willing to pay the price? It's a problem in this market that we have so much wine, from so many different places, with a lot of it sold through supermarkets. I've been told by Australian producers in the past that the UK is just not an important market for them in terms of volume or value, and some are still willing to deal with us purely from a reputational point of view. Some of these Chardonnays are £20 wines, but others are £75, and maybe its a combination of us not being willing to pay it and producers feeling it's too much like hard work to try and sell here?
 
Cheers Kevin. Yes, it's a class act for me, among a dozen extrememly good wines in this selection. It had the combination of fruit weight and density, but fabulous raciness and zest, with enough gravel and flint character for me too. Really some terrific wines in the line-up:

Hawke’s Bay: 12 top 2019 Chardonnays | wine-pages

What a shame that so relatively few of them are availble in the UK.
It is a shame,
I tried but could not find a single one I could buy in the UK:(
 
It's a problem in this market that we have so much wine, from so many different places

I agree with your analysis completely, Tom, but I smiled when I read this line. My parents live in NZ and drink a lot of very good NZ and Australian wine. In fact, they drink wine from almost nowhere else - and not because they are unadventurous. The range of wine available to them from Europe, the Americas or South Africa is limited, and they pay through the nose for it. The 'problem' we have in the UK is not such a bad one to have!
 
I agree with your analysis completely, Tom, but I smiled when I read this line. My parents live in NZ and drink a lot of very good NZ and Australian wine. In fact, they drink wine from almost nowhere else - and not because they are unadventurous. The range of wine available to them from Europe, the Americas or South Africa is limited, and they pay through the nose for it. The 'problem' we have in the UK is not such a bad one to have!

Indeed, I was seeing it as a 'problem' from the wine producer's point of view, rather than us as consumers. Though I guess if some excellent wines decide we are not a suitable export market for their best stuff, that is a minor problem for us too....
 
I've been told by Australian producers in the past that the UK is just not an important market for them in terms of volume or value, and some are still willing to deal with us purely from a reputational point of view.
The Australians shot themselves in the foot by training the UK consumer to buy only when there was a 3 for £10 or whatever years ago. They implemented their 20/20 plan the wrong way round by achieving production targets long before sales targets. It's hardly surprising that so few people seem to care about Aussie wine these days. They were late to regionality and many important figures ridiculed terroir and they found themselves a long way behind the curve. Looking at where I work, it is interesting to compare the success of South Africa with the problems of Australia.
 
I see that the Sacred Hill Rifleman's 2019 so positively reviewed by Tom has just popped up at the Wine Society at what seems to be a very reasonable £32 a bottle. This has also been noted on the WS Community forum so don't expect it to be there for all that long!
Considering it sells for $70 in NZ that is very good value. I haven't tried that particular vintage, but given the wine's track record, the quality of the vintage and Tom's review I would say it would be a great buy. And slightly better value than an equivalent Meursault.
 
Still available this morning so I bought a half case. Kumeu River wines have been long-time Kiwi favourites, so am looking forward to trying this.

Not sure what an equivalent Meursault would be - the cheapest village wine thrown up by Wine-Searcher is around £40 so there is really no price equivalent unless you can find a basic Bourgogne. I am currently drinking Coche-Bizouard Ormeau 2014 which cost about £28 in the opening offer though later vintages likely to be a lot more today.
 
I can attest to the brilliance of Sacred hill 'Riflemans' Chardonnay. I only ever saw one vintage, the 2007, and upon tasting it thought it was exquisite. The last bottle I tasted was three years ago and it still youthful, linear, and elegant, not a scintilla of age upon its brow. The other NZ Chardonnays I have in the cellar is the Greywhacke and Dog Point, both from 2009, and again they were the last vintage that I saw on the market here in Edmonton.
 
Still available this morning so I bought a half case. Kumeu River wines have been long-time Kiwi favourites, so am looking forward to trying this.

Not sure what an equivalent Meursault would be - the cheapest village wine thrown up by Wine-Searcher is around £40 so there is really no price equivalent unless you can find a basic Bourgogne. I am currently drinking Coche-Bizouard Ormeau 2014 which cost about £28 in the opening offer though later vintages likely to be a lot more today.
By an equivalent Meursault I meant Rifleman's is pretty much NZ's top Chard, so whatever is France's top Chard would be an equivalent.
 
Scoring systems can be misleading. HRH uses a 0-20 scale but gives half points, so it is really a 40 point scale. Most critics using a 100 point maximum follow the US school scoring system, popularised by Parker, which has a minimum score of 50 for a liquid in a bottle; in reality it is a 50 point scale.
HRH's score of 17 is equivalent to 93 in the Parker scale, a little below Tom's score.

I note that TC has given scores of 95 to two Kumeu River wines from different vintages, the Mate's Vineyard and the Hunting Hill.
His only 95 pointer white Burgundy was a 2008 Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche from Joseph Drouhin which currently retails for about £600 per bottle in the UK.

NZ produces wonderful chardonnay wines at great prices. This was confirmed at a tasting of KR wines run by Farr Vintners in 2018 with a host of experts including HRH, Neal Martin, Steven Spurrier & Oz Clarke among others. There was agreement that NZ's best white wines are made from chardonnay.

Who needs white burgundy? Perhaps those who drink DRC Montrachet though these tend to cost £6,000 per bottle.

Could Tom and/or Kevin please give a comparison between Rifleman's and Mate's Vineyard?
 
I note that TC has given scores of 95 to two Kumeu River wines from different vintages, the Mate's Vineyard and the Hunting Hill.
His only 95 pointer white Burgundy was a 2008 Montrachet Marquis de Laguiche from Joseph Drouhin which currently retails for about £600 per bottle in the UK.

Hi Michael. First a bit of a necessary correction: there are quite a few 95-point (and above) white Burgs in my database - a quick search on white Burg scoring 91-95 shows 289 wines scored in that range, and just scanning through the first 50 or 60 there are half a dozen 95-pointers and loads of 94 pointers, so not sure how you arrived at your single wine.

However, I would also say that - despite my very best efforts, counselling, and regular visits from an exorcist - I am probably not totally immune to a bit of 'point inflation' myself, given that every critic and his dog has already started on that route: it takes a strong will to say a wine is great, you love it, and it's worth an excellent 93, when the same wine is given 98 by XX and 99 by YY. Critics who stick with their guns will, sadly, soon find themselves overlooked so it is possible that my most recent scores are a bit more generous than I would have given 5 or 10 years ago. I'm only human.

Stylistically, the Rifleman's has gone for a bit more of the flinty 'complex sulphide' character than either of the Kumeu wines in my opinion, but crucially, has not overdone it and has beautiful balance - as do the Kumeus.
 
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