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本帖最後由 fatloong 於 2014-5-26 07:26 編輯
Episode One – The Judegement of Taupo, 18 October, 2008
Taupo is a main tourist town located in the center of NZ’s North Island. It happened to have some link with HK: it is the finishing point of the NZ Trailwalker (毅行者). Anyway, a nice place for vacation.
The Taupo tasting, organized by the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers Association, is kind of a replica of the Judgement of Paris tasting: blind tasting of 6 Gimblett Gravel Bordeaux blend vs 6 Bordeaux Cru Classe (Lafite, Mouton, Haut Brion, Cos, l’Eglise Clinet, Troplong-Mondot), all 2005 vintage by 9 judges. The result shocked the world (or just NZ?): of the top 7 wines, 5 are from Gimblett Gravel, only Lafite and Mouton managed to get 2nd and 6th. The ranking were as follow:
1 - Blake Family Vineyard
2 – Lafite
3 - Sacred Hill Helmsman
4 - Mills is Reef Elspeth.
5 – Mouton
6 – Trinity Hill
7 – Craggy Range Sophia
Episode Two – London rematch, 19 February, 2009
The Taupo tasting failed to get the level of attention that it seems to deserve, probably because it was seen as a local event and a number of the judges are local. The GGWA thus staged a second blind tasting in London with 18 world renowned judges led by Jancis Robinson MW, Neal Martin (he’s my favourite Bordeaux critic) and Michael Schuster.
This time, the 6 Bordeaux wines were Lafite, Mouton, Haut-Brion, Cos, Angelus and Vieux Certan and are still 2005. There were also some changes of the Gimblett Gravels wines and the vintage became 2006. A more “reasonable” result this time:
1 – Lafite
2 – Mouton
3 – Angelus
4 – Sacred Hill Helmsman
5 – Haut-Brion
6 – Newton Forrest Cornerstone
The GGWA was still happy with the result, because even their most expensive wine sells at just about 10% of the cheapest Bordeaux counterpart.
Epilogue
Despite the two tastings, Gimblett Gravels still failed to get much attention from the world. I believe there are several reasons behind this:
- Gimblett Gravels has only 800ha. Even assume a higher yield, production is probably just about 5mn bottles a year, not enough money for the distributors to promote.
- While Gimblett Gravels is unique in using soil type to define the region, it missed some of the most important characteristics of an old world AC, such as grape variety and wine style. There are Syrah/Shiraz, Malbec, or even white wines being produced. This really confused consumers.
- It is a bit unfortunate that subsequent vintages were poor, so bad that Sacred Hill did not produce any Helmsman.
- As Neal Martin pointed out, “there are just 130 cases of the Sacred Hill Helmsman 2006, just 155 cases of the Mills Reef Elspeth 2006 …. hand-glove elevage of a half-dozen barrels is relatively easy compared to hundreds of cases that constitute Chateau Haut-Brion or Chateau Lafite-Rothschild”. He had anticipated that the producers in Gimblett Gravels will raise production (at the expense of quality). I am unable to find production figures, but given that those wines does not seem to be difficult to get, I don't think their production are still at just a few hundred cases (Newton Forest Cornerstone is available in HK through ASC).
I think another Neal Martin comment is best to conclude this: “although I would not make a statement like "Gimblett Gravel Bordeaux blends are just as good as Bordeaux itself", in certain cases the top cuvees ARE just as good as a Classed Growth.”
My personal collection: the same wine used in the London tasting. Only 130 cases produced, even less than DRC RC.
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在線雷達
發表於 2014-5-26 07:20:27
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發表於 2014-5-26 08:21:32
唔夠搵黃金搭夠！
