I’m no big expert on the wines of the New World. Often I dislike their emphatic style. Given my pro-European bias I should like the wines of New Zealand best, and I do. I like the Sauvignon and the Pinot Noirs. So it was a big occasion to meet Kai Schubert in Warsaw and try his award-winning wines.
Kai Schubert tending vines. © Ellisofrichmond.co.uk.
Stuttgart-born Kai Schubert founded Schubert Wines in Martinborough on New Zealand’s North Island in 1998. A wine lover with a particular fondness for Pinot Noir, he was looking for a place on earth to produce world-class Pinot, and was impressed by the average quality of Martinborough Pinots he tasted. The climate here is harsh with cold winds and frosts putting the vines under pressure and naturally limiting the yield to some 30hl/ha, lower than in many leading vineyards of Burgundy and a key factor in making high-quality wines.
Marion’s Vineyard, source of the zestiest NZ Pinot I know. © Schubert Wines @ Facebook.
The other key factor is the vinification style, heavily inspired by Europe and in many ways opposed to standard New World practice. Take the Sauvignon Blanc. By extending lees contact and stainless steel tank maturation to ten months, Kai Schubert intentionally gets out of the young Kiwi Sauvignon market, offering instead a wine more subtle and multi-layered than many notional NZ SBs. The aromatics here are less upfront and pungent, with understated mango, passion fruit and mint, letting the core of cool minerality express itself better. Most impressively, this Sauvignon has real staying power and we actually tasted the 2008 vintage, still in fine shape. The Cabernet Sauvignon–Merlot 2006 with its subtle notes of eucalyptusey herbaceousness was also subtler than most New World counterparts, and not showing its three years in wood at all (although it’s perhaps the least distinctive wine here). The Syrah 2008 was again European in style, very un-Shirazy with plenty of acidic backbone and cool-climat peppery aromatics. Incidentally I went through a flight of Crozes-Hermitage and Côte-Rôtie that same day and Schubert’s Syrah would have competed well – for quality and style – in that context.
Schubert’s flagship Pinot is worth a grand cru.
The focus at Schubert’s is of course on the Pinot Noirs. Apart from a lengthy 6-week vinification (100% destemming as Kai says “stems would add more tannins than New Zealand consumers are prepared to have in their wine”), these wines are based on a selection of Burgundy clones. The Marion’s Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009 is from Able and Pommard, and the most tense and driven Pinot Noir I’ve tasted from outside Burgundy. The cool climate of the Wairarapa district contributes to some amazing zest here; this is not even Chassagne or Volnay but almost Marsannay in style. Made from different Dijon clones, the flagship Block B 2009 is a bigger wine, denser, darker in colour and register, digesting its 50% new oak well. Its portentous bass voice is almost operatic in scope, and this wine will reward cellaring for another 5 years. With a fine attention to detail and an unashamed European twist, these wines would be great with fine food, too.
Birds are one of Wairarapa vineyards’ main issues. © Wines from Martinborough.
Disclosure
I tasted the wines at a public tasting on the invitation of the Polish importer.
Dear Sir,
I like what you write about and how you approach the subject matter a great deal. I’m an American and have spent a great deal of time in New Zealand and imported many of the countries best to the US. Alas no longer-on to Barolo & Barbaresco, another favorite of yours. Seems like we are on the same wine page, so to speak. I know the Schubert wines and they are some of the best in NZ. If you liked his Cabernet & Syrah look for the wines from Trinity Hill in Hawks Bay. Also outstanding! That is not just my opinion. Also look for the wines from Mahi in Marlborough. Brian Bicknell is the owner and winemaker. Contact Ad Bibendum in Belgium. http://www.adbibendum.be As far as I know the wines are not sold in Poland.
If you have any comments fell free to send them along.
Regards…………..Kelly Stockton
Many thanks for your comment Kelly. You’re right – none of the wines you mention is available on the Polish market. But I tasted Trinity Hills on another occasion and I agree with you, very good wines.
It’s interesting you mention Barbaresco. Tasting Schubert’s Marion’s Vineyard 2009 Pinot, I thought the brisk acidity had something Nebbiolo-like to it, but I considered the comparison too osé to use on the blog.
Some nice wines (especially in Martinborough which, at least so far, seems to me to be far and away the most interesting PN area in NZ), but the great majority of the good ones strike me as far too pricey for what they are (even locally, that is in NZ). Good to hear Schubert is still good, though (lost touch with the wines a bit since 2006 or thereabouts).
They aren’t cheap wines but didn’t strike me as particularly bad value. The Sauvignon at <20EUR here in Poland beats a good part of the Sancerres/P-Fumes. Idem for the Pinot Noirs, at 30-35EUR they're better than most premiers crus I can have here.
No idea what’s available on the Polish market, but I’m yet to have an SB from NZ that can hold a candle to some really good stuff from appelations like Quincy, Menetou etc. that is generally available for cca 10 EUR in most EU markets (and I swear it ain’t because I only drink shabby stuff from NZ
). Ditto for Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume’: lots of great (not just good, great) stuff sells for under 20 EUR in European markets such as NL or Germany. As for PN, most of the very best NZ stuff (I’ve had a few) hardly rivals the village-level wines from producers I like and sometimes buy (most selling for under 30 EUR). Chances are it’s just me getting stuffy and lazy, though 
. (Latest case in point: I drank through a line-up of some recent stuff from Larry McKenna’s Escarpment some months ago. Given the fact that I was a big fan of his work at Martinborough Vineyards, I expected fireworks. Nothing doing: all I got was a somewhat jaded Christmas tree in the second week of January 
)
(Thought just occurs: Stuttgart-born Schubert goes looking for a great PN terroir and ends up somewhere at the far end of the globe. Having Baden and Pfalz at your doorstep and ending up in Martinborough… Ah, the call of the wild!
)
I’m not really sure re: Burgundy premier cru. At 30 EUR there are statistically many underwhelming premiers crus, and admittedly some great wines but these are few and far between. I’d say NZ PN looks just a bit more consistent at that price point. Style is another matter of course – I prefer the lean finesse of Burgundy to the fruit-forward expression of many NZ PNs. Sauvignon is perhaps even more controversial because the NZ SB style is instantly recognisable. But I wouldn’t say Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume are working extremely hard towards customer satisfaction at 16-20 EUR. Again I know many underwhelming wines here. I like Menetou and Quincy but how many consistently good estates are out there? Surely not more than in Marlborough.
Oh, and having tasting a large number of Spatburgunders from Baden and the Pfalz, certainly they lack the strong acidic backbone of Martinborough. With global warming in mind, perhaps Kai Schubert made an untuitively right choice.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your reply. I meant no comparisons should be applied to Barbaresco, only your scope of interest in wines and the fact that I have moved onto, in a professional way, dealing with wines of that part of the world. There is a glycerol component or inherent texture in NZ SB that is not present, generally speaking, in the wines of France that are mentioned. Of course there are exceptions in a very warm and successful vintages in those regions of France, but stylistically speaking those vintages, great as they may be, do not represent the norm, or style of the regions as a whole.
Regarding NZ SB and PN etc. I am not a good general reference point as I have had 1000s of wines in the bottle and in barrel ranging from 1993 onward, and have had many wines there that never left the shores of New Zealand or very little of it. Lucky Aussies! Well I did bring some remarkable wines to the US myself. Seek out the Brick Bay Pinot Girs from Matakana-North Island. Truly remarkable wine. Alas I don’t think it is exported since I imported it to the US.
As far as Marlborough, I’ll go as far as to agree that a) there are many estates there, and b) most appear to be quite consistent. I’m just not sure how many of those I’d choose to describe as “consistently good”. But then, as we know, different people mean different things when they say “good wine”…There are “statistically many underwhelming wines” almost wherever you care to look (probably in most, if not all, of the world’s major winemaking regions), if that’s what one chooses to focus on, and my experience is that New Zealand is certainly no exception. But if instead I focus on what for the last ten or so years have been widely considered the pinnacles of NZ PN, my impression (formed over years of tasting and drinking a fair amount of these wines both in Europe and in NZ) closely mirrors the conclusions found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/dining/reviews/pinot-noir-from-new-zealand-wine-review.html?pagewanted=all.
.
. But it’s another one of those rock-and-a-hardplace situations: if it ain’t global warming that gets you, it might be this faultline or that landslide… 
.
Re: PN value/inherent interest at EUR30 price point, well, again, this finds me begging to differ.
Re: Sancerre & co., roughly 80% of my SB drinking (and I am a big fan of the variety) is Loire and the majority of that falls within the EUR 10-20 price category: we must be drinking different wines because this here is certainly one very satisfied “consumer”
Re: Baden/Pfalz vs Martinborough acids, again, I wish I could see the situation in such clear-cut terms… OTOH, Martinborough (including its surroundings) is a magical place and the whole landscape there shimmers in a special and different light: that alone would make it a good choice to move in absolute terms
(BTW, are you coming to the Zagreb Wine Festival this year?)
@Kelly: many thanks again for your comment. I’ll seek the Brick Bay where I can find them.
I’m not sure Buonsangue. Simply put these wines from Schubert struck me as: 1) better than >50% of red Burgundy I know in that price range, 2) as good as >50% Loire Sauvignon I know in that price range, 3) better than 80% Baden/Pfalz Pinot Noir I know (and cheaper than the really good wines), 4) of course these are just my impressions, and you appear to have deeper knowledge of NZ wines than myself, which I’m happy to admit.
And you’ll forgive for going to Zurich instead of Zagreb this year… but I look forward to seeing you in HR on another occasion.
(In fact, I’m quite unlikely to be around for it myself, but wanted to leave a couple of bottles of some off-the-beaten-track wines for you to check in on in case you were there. Leave it till next time, then. Have fun in Zurich!)
Very kind of you. There’ll be another occasion I’m sure.