Wine list favours Vavasour sauvignon

The naming of four Vavasour’s wines in a Cuisine Magazine top five New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wines list will help the Marlborough winery expand its export markets.

Wine maker’s Dashwood, Clifford Bay, Vavasour and Redwood Pass Sauvignon Blanc wines all garnered a five-star rating and are named in a list of top five New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wines.

Managing director Peter Scutts says these awards along with others won by the company this year will help overseas retailers market the Vavasour’s wines.

“Our export markets are going quite well,” he adds. “We sell about 20 percent of the wine in New Zealand and the other 80% goes overseas.”

Most of this export wine heads to Australian, UK and US markets; however, the company has also begun exporting into Asia.

“The Asian markets already drink a lot of red wine. It is potentially a lucrative market,” he says.

“Five years ago we produced 30,000 cases and this year we produced 360,000 cases. Over the next five years we don’t intend to grow quite as rapidly but would like to be producing between 450,000 to 500,000 cases,” he says, adding that most of the extra cases will be bound for overseas.

Some of this growth can be attributed to owners, the NZ Wine Fund, who purchased Vavasour in 2002. The fund then bought Goldman’s in 2006 and merged the two wine makers to create the larger company.

Mr Scutts says Vavasour is not expecting the recession to impact sales as research indicated wine and beer did not follow economic conditions.

“We will be fine as long as the wine is good value and the quality is what our customers want. And it is outstanding wine,” he says.

He believes the wine maker’s Sauvignon Blanc’s was good value with the four Vavasour wines named by Cuisine Magazine retailing for under $20.