Can sauvignon blanc age well?
If you have enough self control not to break the seal on a sauvignon blanc in the supermarket car park, there's no doubt some of the magical stuff can hold its appeal over the years.
'I 'm not really sure that sauvignon blanc is designed to be kept," drawled John Avery in front of hundreds of swirling wine devotees in Marlborough last week.
This may have been stating the obvious, but it was inevitable that the British Master of Wine would be drawn on a very deliberate attempt by New Zealand winegrowers to promote sauvignon blanc's age ability.
About 300 people had squeezed into a white, sun-washed, flapping marquee at Winegrowers of Ara outside Blenheim to pay tribute to the region's prime export.
It was the start of three days of unadulterated berry worship: the Marlborough Wine Weekend.
Attended by winemakers, traders and avid consumers, it comes around every two years. This is only the second time it has been held.
In front of us were eight carefully selected examples - all from the 2007 vintage. The wine is traditionally drunk young, so a focus on sauvignon blanc bottled two years ago was somewhat unique.
On the table were four from Marlborough (Nautilus, Highfield, Lawsons Dry Hills, Seresin Marama), two from the Loire Valley (Henri Bourgeois La Demoiselle, Didier Dagueneau Buisson-Renard), an Australian from Mt Barker, Margaret River (Forest Hill) and a Chilean from the Casablanca Valley (Cono Sur).
To me, the Didier Dagueneau Buisson-Renard came out at the top of the lineup. An astonishing length, a powerful and exotic nose - an authoritative wine that literally takes control of you.
For Avery, the Nautilus clearly ranked high. "I think part of its appeal, ironically, is that it is not a desperately Marlborough style. It is more restrained and a bit more delicate," he said. "The Nautilus is so nice at the moment that there is not much point in keeping it."
And that's the crux of it. A wine clearly at its peak is begging to be consumed, and sauvignon blanc generally peaks within its first couple of years.
After that, it can begin to lose the rich and lively citrus, mineral and herbaceous qualities, for which it has gained worldwide appeal.
With age, sauvignon blanc has been known to develop a taste likened to canned peas.
But renowned New Zealand wine- writer John Saker said he thought some of the older, higher-quality sauvignon blanc he had tasted in recent years had developed differently.
"There was a notable absence of the green peas character that most of us don't particularly like in ageing sauvignon, and a lot of those stone- fruit flavours coming through," he said. "Well-made sauvignon, where every care has been taken in the vineyard, is starting to show those characters, with age."
If you have enough self-control not to break the seal on a sauvignon blanc in the supermarket car park, there's no doubt some of the magical stuff can hold its appeal over the years.
Highfield Estate in Marlborough offered to prove the point. There, winemaker Alistair Soper led me through a vertical tasting of his sauvignon blanc concoctions from 1999 to 2009, an extraordinary journey through 11 wines blended from grapes in the Marlborough sub- regions.
"It still looks almost as fresh as the day it was bottled, in 2007," murmured Soper with delight, and closed his eyes to focus his mind.
"I see very, very little development in that bottle. And it's got a nice range of flavours. I see mostly the riper fruit, sort of tropical pineapples and things like that, but there is a little bit of herbal - what I would describe as nettle, a nettley character."
Highfield's 2007 certainly still had a surprising liveliness, texture and fruity character after two years in the bottle and, of course, it was one of only four Marlborough wines chosen for the Wine Weekend's grand tasting of sauvignon blanc.
But most striking was the Highfield 2000. Remembered as a low-yielding and cool year in the vineyard, it had developed a huge nose, but had retained a potent range of concentrated flavours. In essence, it was entirely drinkable after nine years in the bottle, broad and complex. It didn't end there. The 2003 and 2005 still stood up admirably too.
All very interesting, it seemed, until we sprang Soper's 2009 - a beautiful, lively offering which delivers the kind of zing that drives sauvignon blanc drinkers wild.
Although I've learned not to shy away from a quality older bottle, especially with the right food match, given the choice, I'd take the latest creation without a second thought.
If you've got the option of young and sexy, why would you choose anything else?