Yesterday I had a hankering. Sitting in my room at home, I watched the mid-afternoon sunshine stream through open blinds over sliding glass doors, painting pinstripes of light on the walls all around me. Birds chirped excitedly in the backyard. Regardless of Saturday’s rain, Spring is in the air in Southern California, and I can feel the shift in my bones and see it in my behavior: the flip flops are out, I’ve been dying to shop, I got my first sunburn during a long walk on the beach, and yesterday, I welcomed crisp white wine back into my life after a long winter of red wine and Chardonnay.
“Let’s go on a sunset picnic,” I told Tom. “I want bread and cheese and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.”
Forty-five minutes later, we were sprawled on an old sleeping bag on the sand, dangerously close to the incoming tide and surrounded by delicacies (insofar as one can define ‘delicacies’ from Ralph’s supermarket): a log of Brie cheese, a Boar’s Head Dry Italian Salumi, some olive tapenade, a La Brea Bakery sourdough baguette, a couple of dixie cups, and a chilled bottle of Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand 2009.
New Zealand is the Little Engine That Could of the wine world. As perhaps the most impressive newcomer—exploding onto the map in the 1980s with their über-racy Sauvignon Blanc—New Zealand has made some monumental strides since the “Dolly plonk” wine of the 20th century Dalmatian settlers. It wasn’t lack of effort that kept this burgeoning wine industry at bay for so long, but rather a combination of rookie winemaking and a brutal temperance movement. WWII was over before wine could legally be sold by the bottle, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that it could be sold in restaurants. It was also in 1960 that the French-American hybrid Isabella—which produces a poor quality fortified wine—thankfully gave up its throne as the most widely planted grape of the country.
These days, Sauvignon Blanc is king, and its kingdom is Marlborough. Perched on the northernmost end of the South Island, the Marlborough coast is a maze of mountaintops and waterways. Inland, it is wide, flat valleys. No vineyard in New Zealand is less than 80 miles from the ocean, and the crisp, cool air, long days, bright sunshine, and extreme diurnal shifts are perfect for Sauvignon Blanc.
Probably the most well known wine of the now famous Marlborough, the Oyster Bay is a good expression of the region, full of bright acid and tropical fruit. Taking your first sip is like biting into a big green apple—the flavor sensation is so powerful that it is almost distracting. The second sip will satisfy you much more, waves of guava, Meyer lemon, and fresh-cut lemongrass washing over your tongue. Thought tasty, the Oyster Bay is admittedly not my favorite of the many Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc’s available on the market. It lacks the wild, verdant characteristic that many of these wines share: unruly yet elegant green notes like lime rind, wild herb and green figs. Often these wines are sunshine incarnate. Still, for the first picnic of Spring, I can’t complain.
Here’s to bright days full of bright wine!
Happy March. Cheers!
