AsiaLIFE

As we approach the festive season, Darren Gall has decided it’s time to brush up on what’s hot and what’s not in the world of wine for the coming season.

What’s Hot

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc / New Zealand Pinot Noir
As the global trend towards lighter bodied wines continues New Zealand now finds itself one of the trendiest, premium wine producing countries in the world. Seen as the pre-eminent producer of Sauvignon Blanc  – particularly from the Marlborough region, which produces wines that often strike the perfect balance of ripe tropical/passion fruit flavours and grassy/herbaceousness – it is also quickly gaining recognition for its Pinot Noir wines, particularly from the regions of Central Otago, Waipara and Wairarapa.

Pink Champagne
Champagne never really goes out of fashion, as Madame Lilly Bollinger famously stated: “I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and I drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it, unless I'm thirsty.” But within the classification of Champagne and the wider international classification of sparkling wine, there are many different styles and types. The once trifled with ‘Rose’ Champagne is now the hottest ticket in sparkling wine -under the guise ‘Pink’ Champagne as its new devotees prefer to call it.

Bordeaux 2005
The 2005 Bordeaux has become one of the most hyped vintages by the world’s most famous wine critics, judges, brokers and reporters in living memory. Ideal growing conditions have produced some of the best wines the region has ever seen – if you believe the pundits. Rest assured that anyone providing a bottle of 2005 Bordeaux amongst friends will be able to dazzle them with Parker Notes and lavish quotes from some of the world’s most famous wine critics. Select a top wine from a minor region like Saint Foy, Côtes de Castillon, Lalande de Pomerol or Haut-Médoc and your guests will stand in awe of your shrewd and intimate knowledge of the vintage.

Albarino
Delicate, tongue-tingling, musky apricot fruit with a lingering mineral and spicy finish, Albarino has become achingly trendy – and deservedly so. This is the perfect seafood match. Again in line with the global shift towards lighter bodied wines another ancient and unusual variety is finding favour.

What’s Not

Merlot
Although I am a fan of good wines no matter what the variety or where it comes from, the fact remains that varieties and regions do go in and out of fashion with the wider wine drinking public. The noble Merlot variety has taken a bit of a hiding in recent years from critics, consumers and even in movies – Sideways. While the best examples remain sublime wines, a veritable ocean of cheap, light, fruity and simple Merlots flooded many markets in the nineteen nineties – and were terribly, terribly fashionable at the time. It has since been relegated to the slow-moving aisles, where it will remain for at least a few more years.

Chardonnay
Once there was the ‘Chardonnay set’ in the late eighties and early nineties, during which, Chardonnay wines went from being, the drink to be seen with, to the drink that everybody was seen with. Then came the ‘ABC crowd’ (ABC standing for Anything But Chardonnay), which followed the common market principle that as soon as there is too much of something people will move on to something else.

So there you have it, you are now in the know and up to the minute on the latest in wine trends and fashions for the coming season, go forth and dazzle your friends and colleagues with your wine savvy selections and remember to drink well is to enjoy but not to excess.