Tasting the Most Popular New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Wines | Value Wines

We're tasting everybody's favorite big brand Sauvignon Blancs today. Should be fun. Welcome back to Drinking It In. I'm your host Chris Cassara. We're here to help you know more and drink better. And, you know, it's been a while since I've done a long-form video, but I figured a good way to get back into the swing of things, given the warm weather that I'm sure is occurring somewhere, to drink a little New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Now, I tend to drink a fair amount of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, you know, when you're out as maybe a first drink. But when it comes to drinking it at home, I usually stick to my favorite, which is a Grey Wacky, is the name of the wine brand. And I don't really explore the big brands, but everybody loves them. So I figured I'd try to see what all the hubbub is about. So I have here a Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, a Matua Sauvignon Blanc, and an Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc. These are all from, are they all from Marlborough? I believe they're all from Marlborough. Yes, they are. I haven't really had much experience with these wines at all recently. The Kim Crawford I had several years ago. Oyster Bay I may have had one glass a while back. And Matua, I think I had bought a bottle maybe 10 years ago, had it at home. So it's about time. So, you know, over the last like, what, 10, 15 years, New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs have really become, you know, the darlings of the wine world, right? If you're not, you know, people are always drinking loads of this stuff. You know, I think the other, this is Monty. He's smelling the Matua that I just poured. Do you like the aroma? All right. Sorry. So when I was commuting into Boston last week, I was driving behind a truck that had Matua Sauvignon Blanc all over it. It was just, that was basically the advertisement on the truck. So let's see what these are like. These are 2022 for Matua and Kim Crawford and a 2023 vintage for Oyster Bay. Let me make sure I, I give, put these in the right order of what I had poured. We have Kim Crawford on your left, Matua on your right and Oyster Bay in the middle. You can get these, they're very reasonable wines, right? Matua, $9. Oyster Bay is usually around 11. Kim Crawford is closer to 16. They got the big marketing muscle behind them. I am going to go from left to right. So we'll start with the Kim Crawford. Very, you know, so these wines typically have a nose of, you know, grapefruit, you know, tart citrus, passion fruit, perhaps cut grass, maybe some jalapeno pepper. And at times, if you know the smell, they have a little bit of a cat pee smell to them. It's not an unpleasant thing, but it can be, you know, it is pretty distinctive. This is actually a little more muted than I expected. It's a pretty pleasant nose. There's a little grapefruit. It's not, you know, you're getting that nice grassy note. It smells light and friendly. Now let's give it a sip. Okay. The last time I had Kim Crawford, I felt like it sort of punched me in the face with a ton of grapefruit. This is actually a lot more pleasant. It lacks a zing that I think you would really, really want from your Sauvignon Blanc. But it's actually, it's pretty pleasant to drink. So, good start. It's more, almost more lemony on the finish than that kind of ruby red grapefruit you got at the start. All right, let's go into the middle. We've got the Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc and Oyster Bay wines, they, you know, they capture the special character of New Zealand. Elegant, assertive wines with glorious fruit flavors. Let's see if it stands up to their narrative on the bottle. But this one smells like a jalapeno pepper. That's kind of fun. Very vegetal, jalapeno, a little bit of a, not quite a nutmeg-y spice, but like a, like some sort of an aromatic spice similar to nutmeg. I'm not getting a lot of fruit. Let's see. This one's almost a little perfumey, a little grapefruity on the palate. Definitely has a spice, actually has a spice. My tongue is tingling a bit. Totally different than the Kim Crawford. Actually, quite pleasant. And it's funny, I, you know, you hear some surprise in my voice. I was expecting much more, much more amoratics. Yeah, good work. Aromatics from these, from these bottles. And they're, they're really behaving quite nicely. All right, on to the Matua 2022. The meaning of Matua, by the way, is head of family in the Maori language. How about that? And I like that they, they are pairing it. They're enjoying it. They're saying, enjoy it in the sunshine with anything from the sea. That's a wine pairing that's applicable to all these. Okay. This Matua smells like water. Maybe I can make, is my nose clogged or something? Do I have a head cold? Very, very muted. Not much going on in the nose at all. Yeah. Okay. That one's sort of like water. All right. This was fun. So I guess, you know, I can't, so in full disclosure, I came into this episode feeling like I wasn't gonna really have a lot of kind words on these, to be honest. But, you know, I know that everybody loves these wines across the board and, and you can see why, you know, they're not necessarily my speed. I want a lot more flavor out of the Kim Crawford. Same thing applies to the Oyster Bay and Matua. I don't know what the heck happened to this one over the years. It used to be much more expressive, but they're all, I mean, you can tell why people love these wines. They are easy to drink and, you know, when it's, when the weather's warm outside or you're by the pool, I mean, you could, you could easily see this being a perfect drink. Now, if I were ranking these in terms of my favorite, you know, bring up the rear is Matua. I think Kim Crawford would be number two. And number one would be Oyster Bay. It was, it was a much more unique, you know, set of flavors and aromatics with that, with that jalapeno pepper making a real strong appearance. That being said, I don't know that I would buy any of these again, just because you can get Sauvignon Blanc wines for a few dollars more that just blow these away. But let me know what your favorite Sauvignon Blancs are in the comments. They don't have to be from New Zealand, right? Maybe you like drinking Sauvignon Blanc from another part of the world, and that's something we should explore together. Thanks for joining. That's all I got. Cheers.