The Great New Zealand Pinot Noir Classification 2010 is the work of Brit Matthew Jukes and Brisbane-based writer Tyson Stelzer. This is the third classification, published inside their books Taste Food and Wine 2008, 2009, 2010.

Although the 2010 edition is not yet released the pair announced their 2010 classification on 4 February at Pinot Noir 2010 in Wellington.

There are two critical aspects of this Classification: first it is taken as a rolling average of five consecutive vintages, this year 2009- 2005 to provide a better assessment of “track performance”, and second the basic estate or main brand wine is tasted rather than special selections or single vineyard portions.

On this year’s activities Tyson reports ” We update the classification every year on the basis of new vintage wines released. Over the past year I have completed extensive regional tastings in Central Otago, Marlborough and Martinborough as well as the national tastings in Wellington this month, which alone covered more than 400 New Zealand Pinot Noirs.”

The classification is based on the star system; five through to one. The three five star properties were Ata Rangi (Martinborough NZD 65 for 2008), Felton Road and Mt Difficulty (Central Otago NZ 46 and 44.95 for 2008). Find full results on www.matthewjukes.com

I asked Mount Difficulty’s Matt Dicey what it takes to maintain a five star estate wine: his response was “we would like to think that the consistency of the estate pinot is one of the elements which is clearly extremely important – interesting to note that two of the 5 star wineries come from Bannockburn and perhaps this is a form of recognition for the Bannockburn sub-region being an excellent performer even in very different vintage conditions.” I guess he means his terroir is the most important factor.

Such a classification draws contrast with the Bordeaux AC system where French properties can escape detection of making poor wines while holding their high classifications for decades-tantamount to profiteering really-when so much wine is bought sight unseen through the indent system.

In comparison it has already gone out over the web waves that more Kiwi brands are improving with Craggy Range, Martinborough Vineyard, Pegasus Bay and Rippon moving up from three to four stars. There is no sign of demotion of the major brands as wine quality keeps lifting, probably as the vines keep developing more age.

I asked Blair Hunt from Bald Hills about his level of contentment for his brand’s rating ” We are reasonably pleased with three stars. There is still room for improvement for the very young Bald Hills and with each year of vine age our wines are improving considerably. Quite apart from vine age, we and our viticulturist are constantly seeking ways to improve the balance of the vine and thus the ripeness and intensity of flavour of the fruit at harvest.

Crop management plays a significant role: in 2010 for example, we are going with one bunch per shoot in two of our Pinot blocks. Our Winemaker keeps himself fully informed of technical developments too, and the excellent site we chose initially on which to plant the pinot noir grape continues to serve us well.”

”In short, our object has always been to make better wine each year; a process of continuous improvement. Recent vertical tastings show quite clearly that this is happening. Another comment we would make is that we think these sorts of rankings are far more valuable to the consumer than the wine show results which judge just one wine at a given time in a line-up in which hundreds of wines are tasted. Does the consumer want to know whether a particular wine has won a gold medal or whether a producer makes consistently excellent wines year after year? ”

Rankings such as these show us where we are and urge us to improve even more. They are more importantly, a continuing challenge for us to get to where we might believe our Pinot should be ranked. Three stars is an encouraging start.” Bald Hills rated three stars in 2009, and two stars in 2008.

And as a final aside on Kiwi pinot Tyson says ” The price of New Zealand pinot noir continues to rise, and it is here that Australia is able to play a unique card. New Zealand is not able to land decent pinot on our shores for less than AUD 20, and it is here that Aussie wines are still the best pick on the shelves.”

We know that the Fosters Wine division is a giant juggernaut but you ought to hear more about their La Maison de Grand Esprit (Grand Spirit House) project. These are wines labelled as French, made in France by several of Fosters winemakers in conjunction with various French properties then sold solely in Australia. www.maisondegrandesprit.com.au

There are several tiers of the wines: Burgundy grand cru (four out of five screw capped), premier cru and Bourgogne (four out of five screw capped), and Rhone (one out of five screw capped).

But the clutch which caught my eye served at the nearby Chalk Hotel in Woolloongabba (home of the Queensland Bulls) was Les Petites Vignettes, meaning the small vines (AUD 8.50 per glass). This is 2007 Bourgogne Pinot Noir (13% alcohol).

I encountered the full range of Les Petites Vignettes at a recent Baguette Bistrot duck degustation dinner in Ascot near Brisbane’s famous horse racecourse. www.baguette.com.au

The card included a tremendous Non-vintage Pinot Noir Chardonnay from Burgundy (AUD 28), 50/50 which is unusual for this region where most of the production is Cremant (less bubble) chardonnay. This wine is 70% 2007 and 30% 2006 vintages, given a good year or more on yeast which has developed funkiness, 12% alcohol. Coldstream Hills winemaker Andrew Fleming oversaw the Burgundian end of the project for Fosters so his selection resulted with this wine.

With duck liver parfait, plus apple and date I mused over Alsace Pinot Blanc 2008 (AUD 21), 12.4% alcohol, made totally dry thank goodness (some Alsatian whites will creep up on you when you need dry with the food, and get gazumped with residual sweetness). Fatty and oily duck liver needs a steely acid from this quite restrained Alsace variety.

Over in the central Loire near Touraine Fosters found some Sauvignon Blanc 2008 (AUD 21), 12% alcohol which kills the Marlborough stuff by a country mile. Matched with soft boiled duck egg (Bendele Organic from near Kilkivan in the Gympie Hinterland) it displays seductive minerality which tames the duck and brings out the tarragon in the brioche finger which accompanied.

Our 2007 Pinot Noir (AUD 28) mentioned above had of course to pair with two courses: finger licking duck leg confit, as rich as ever but not to dominate the pinot showing traces of fresh oak cleverly wrapped into its texture. Then the pinky duck breast, fat encrusted, served with the giblets in a cinnamony pie stood up to the bright cherry fruit of this pinot.

The dessert wine, Pinot Gris 2008 (AUD 35) for 375 ml from Alsace was a collaboration between Fosters gris genius Kevin McCarthy of T’Gallant fame and Alsace’s Frederick Blanck. This was made in the vendage tardive style without any botrytis, rich yet brutal in its alcohol content, 13.3%, and slippery in texture.

The wine accompanied a low-sweetness dessert; duck egg clafoutis with brown bread ice cream; and did well.

While the Alsatians understood the destruction of cork, and all wines were screw capped, those makers in Burgundy and the Rhone were not as accommodating with screw cap finishing. While Australian winemakers are worldly about the bad influence of cork stoppers, many traditional French producers fail to mix amongst their markets and see how frequently their wines fail under standard cork.

In most instances screw cap prevailed, and if not now in this three year Fosters project, expect more wines to come screw capped in future, until they all are!

The Chalk’s Gabba restaurant manager Will Brennan remarks, “This wine sells well. I have a new and very believable story to tell our diners. I had a French couple who were most querulous about it because it was so far from the norm of labelling in France”.

These Les Petites Vignettes labels are floral, happy, hip and quite engaging for modern drinkers.

Over the past two months I had LinkedIn conversations with New Zealander Vic Williams who is commercially attached to the China wine trade.

The conversation subject was when will we see Chinese wine in export markets. Not long probably.

But can we believe what is on the label is in fact inside the bottle? China has no integrity laws yet, and we often have thoughts of wines with vintages misrepresented.

Vic is of the opinion that a reputable Chinese producer can establish an export business by shipping made wine in bulk to a bottling facility in a New World site with integrity; such as British Colombia with its large ex-pat Chinese population.

This may have some traction but I am of the opinion that leading Chinese brands need to demonstrate self-imposed integrity steps so that buyers can believe what they buy and taste outside China is the real deal.

However, this is not the answer either if we study the suspended jail sentences handed down in Carcassonne, Languedoc, France last week, to 12 French traders who had successfully duped the massive US winemaker E&J Gallo by substituting bulk shipments of pinot noir wine with other red varieties. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/business/global/19wine.html

This whole episode has some interesting asides for a company with a bevvy of legal, production and wine tasting experts who appear to have not picked this up at a very early stage. Or did they, and this has not yet been revealed?

This wine was going into the Red Bicyclette range, a budget French wine selection which has been a popular winner for the Gallo company in terms of imported market share.

What is interesting is that pinot noir is not a mainstream grape variety in the Languedoc region where this wine was supplied, and when grown there would command a premium due to its scarcity value. It would be freely available further north in Burgundy, but again at even higher prices.

Gallo was paying 97 euros per hectolitre for pinot noir whereas other basic red varieties (such as carignan, cinsaut, grenache, syrah or merlot) sell for around 45 euros.

On February 17 Gallo posted a press statement expressing their deep concern for the situation, clearly pointing out that the substitution occurred with the 2006 vintage, and not the 2007 vintage which must currently be in the US marketplace. www.gallo.com/pressroom

However, there are still fraudulently-labelled bottles in the US market place. This is causing some concern at present for health authorities, for it is not a health issue but no doubt Gallo would like to be seen as a good corporate citizen, though shudder at the cost of locating older bottles.

I cannot think about this substitution being a little bit of deja-vu! The popular film Sideways had the wine tragic denouncing USA’s popular varietal merlot in favour of the more snobby pinot noir; and now a section of the US population has probably been drinking merlot mislablelled as French pinot – and loving it.

So Chinese wine exporters have a challenge – to be seen to have overcome their daily wine frauds, and moved on into an environment of integrity.

This latest episode in Southern France will repress the reputation of all French wines sold in bulk and at the same time enhance the bulk wine industries of Chile and Australia who have stronger integrity reputations.

Last weekend a glossy wine catalogue dropped out of my local paper. It was called Dan Murphy’s Fine Wine Buyer’s Guide summoning wine drinkers to have a read, and hopefully visit their nearby supermarket wine store to find a bargain.

Maybe we’d call 2006 Mouton Rothschild @ AUD 999.00 a bargain because many of the indent schemes offered it for AUD 1250 when it arrived over the past few months.

Opening the front cover we discovered five gents who are Dan’s wine panel – with glass in hand of course and decked out in white laboratory coats which the big wine shows still use.

I’d expect these guys live in Melbourne where they preside over something like 40 percent of Australian wine which goes on sale in this country. Any winemaker trying to sell to them needs to trek to Dan’s head office to make submissions.

In fact, these guys are the gatekeepers who keep as much wine out of their Woolworths stores as they let in these days with the existing over-production.

I did a Google search for Peter Nixon, Gary Braidner, Steven Creber, Richard Moore and Tony Titheridge, the five men highlighted as wine judge/experts. I have to report that I came up with little information.

Peter Nixon is reported as an important cog in Qantas wine service in the sky before joining Dan. That program has been very successful for Brand Australia wine. Mr Nixon’s specific efforts are not known to me although I suspect it was a gatekeeper role because it was easier to land an interview with the Pope than supply a wine on Qantas, and still is.

Gary Braidner came up on a Google search as a Fine Wine Category Manager who had been an associate judge at the 2007 Boutique Wines of Australia wine competition.

So I guess this wine panel spends its time internalising on its wine choices rather than being out there in the public eye as agreed experts as the Dans Guide might have us think.

What’s in the guide? Well the sub-standard New Zealand sauvignon blanc flooding our domestic producers efforts were not there. It is interesting to note however that a full page advertisement appeared for Cloudy Bay, including the famous sauvignon blanc 2009 at AUD 29.90.

Where many Kiwi sauvignons have fallen to around AUD 10-15, and some Dans direct buys reach down to AUD 6.99, the marketers at Moet-Hennessey keep this kiwi idol at a premium price, and it is seen to sell for up to AUD 35 in some high-end stores.

Curiously, writer James Halliday wrote very positively about the same wine last weekend, also quoting it sell price as AUD 24.95 which must be a typo as clearly nobody beats Dans on price!

Dan’s guide has two pages featuring Bordeaux wines – arguably among some of the most overpriced wine around for what it is – cabernet etc. However Dans prices look quite good value and I recommend to pick up a bottle if you have not tried Bordeaux red before. All the wines under AUD 100 look terrific value.

My colleague Andrew Caillard MW, then a principal at Langtons the auction house, and based in Sydney was directly involved in purchasing indent Bordeaux 2006 a year after they were made.

Andrew is billed in this Guide as a guest contributor and has played a more recent role in wine education amongst Dans fine wine staff.

Since then Woolworths have purchased Langtons and gained some price advantage, the same as any direct Langtons customers who paid for the wines in 2007, and received them over the past few months.

Have a read of the Guide or find it on www.danmurphys.com.au.