New Zealand Sauvignon and Pinot

New Zealand’s wine industry is in a paradoxical position today. Exports of their wines reached a billion NZ dollars this summer, up from around 100 million ten years ago. Much of the increase in wine volume has been accounted for by sauvignon blanc, the country’s signature variety, and in recent years New Zealand’s exports to Australia have skyrocketed. When New Zealand’s 2008 harvest turned out larger than expected, growers were ecstatic, as at the time they needed larger quantities of wine to satisfy strong demand from export markets.

But barely 18 months later, the worldwide recession has changed the supply/demand equation. Benign weather in recent vintages, especially in 2008, has resulted in a glut of wine. I’ve heard some reports of grape supply contracts being cancelled and vineyards being pulled out, and New Zealand wines appear to be backing up in the pipeline Stateside. I’ve been sampling new sauvignon blanc and pinot releases at virtually the same time each year, and this time I noticed that many U.S. importers are offering the same vintage as they were last year. Clearly, this phenomenon applies equally to wines in many other categories, and U.S. importers are no doubt now in the process of pressuring their New Zealand suppliers for pricing concessions, as are importers of wines from Europe and elsewhere.