Kiwi wine 'dependable but unchallenging'

New Zealand wines are like a Porsche car, dependable but unchallenging, according to British TV celebrity James May.

Best known for his role with car show Top Gear, he has in recent years also morphed into a wine aficionado, fronting BBC wine appreciation documentaries.

Now he plans to film a new series of his BBC wine documentary show in New Zealand with connoisseur Oz Clarke.

New Zealand wines were sensible and uncomplicated, he said.

"I try to drink New Zealand wines all the time at home, I learned that early on. I soon realised that new world wines are slightly more dependable. I settled on Marlborough estate sauvignon blanc and I've been drinking it ever since. That is my regular at home. I always have a few bottles of that."

Typically he made the point with a car analogy, likening Kiwi wine to a Porsche.

"It's a bit like the Porsche 911, Ferraris might be a bit more exciting, Maserati are a bit more exotic but if you like the sensation of driving a well engineered, very well set up car and you actually want to depend on it and use it you end up with a Porsche 911."

He said wine "perverts" liked French wines because they were complex. "They are very complicated and you will never understand them entirely."

Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure was first aired in 2006 on BBC2.

May, with fellow Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, is in New Zealand for the Top Gear Live show in Auckland this weekend. Local racing star Greg Murphy fills in for Richard Hammond, who is back in Britain.

It is first time in New Zealand for May, but he says he already feels at home. Kiwis seem a lot more laid back than the typical Aussie yahoo, he says. "There is less of a sense they want to impress you."