Celebrate 6th annual Sauvignon Blanc Day on April 24 with NZ's famous grape   8 Apr 2015

Image courtesy of Villa Maria. 

There's no doubt about it, Sauvignon Blanc is special. It is the variety that awoke the world to New Zealand wine and continues to dazzle wine critics across the world. Accounting for 85% of wine exported from New Zealand, the world seems to have an insatiable thirst for Sauvignon Blanc's crisp acidity and unmistakable 'zing'.

This year, the sixth annual Sauvignon Blanc Day will be held on Friday 24th April and New Zealand Winegrowers will be celebrating by holding activities spanning the globe beginning in New Zealand and will follow the sun with lunches, tastings and events taking place in Melbourne, Hong Kong, Germany, London, Toronto, and New York, finishing in San Francisco, 43 hours later, with a tasting at Twitter Headquarters.

In London, New Zealand Winegrowers are hosting an Ultimate Sauvignon Blanc Tasting with over 100 examples from across New Zealand, to celebrate the wide range of styles on offer.  Michelin Star Chef; Roger Jones, who owns The Harrow at Little Bedwyn will be showcasing the breadth and diversity of New Zealand's flagship variety with an array of fresh innovative dishes to highlight the quality of this grape that made New Zealand world famous.

The International Sauvignon Blanc Celebration will feature speakers from an array of sectors including science, entertainment, hospitality, journalism and also fellow Sauvignon Blanc producers from around the world, providing guests with a compelling range of perspectives and opinions about Sauvignon Blanc.

In conjunction with Sauvignon Blanc Day, Peter Gordon has brought together three restaurants around the world to celebrate the grape that catapulted the New Zealand wine industry to fame. PUBLIC (New York), The Sugar Club (Auckland) and The Providores and Tapa Room (London) will each all be showcasing a tasting flight of six Sauvignon Blancs, for the week 20th - 26th April.

Each restaurant will showcase six New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs in an exclusive flight to improve their guest’s understanding of the grape. This is a rare opportunity to try some of the finest examples from the country. Named ‘A journey of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc’ these 6 very different expressions will highlight the diversity of Sauvignon Blanc from barrel fermented and oak aged examples to highlighting the dramatic characteristic differences throughout each of the five regions’ unique climates.

Guests at the three restaurants will receive a tasting sheet with their wine flight to garner knowledge about the subtleties of the wines and the New Zealand wine industry as a whole. In London, Peter Gordon’s The Providores and Tapa Room have long been champions of the country’s wine industry and their wine list is the largest exclusively New Zealand restaurant list in Europe.

The full flight highlights Ata Rangi 2014, Neudorf 2013, Greywacke 2012, Dog Point 2012, Pegasus Bay 2012 and Rippon 2013 for £22.95. Glasses served will be 125ml servings. The flight and international campaign is the brainchild of The New Zealand Cellar, a site dedicated to educating the public on New Zealand wines and importing some of the finest examples from the country. Melanie Brown of The New Zealand Cellar said this of the celebration “This is a formidable team of restaurants that each have a keen eye on the success and recognition of interesting defined styles of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Collectively encouraging a keen awareness on an international stage helps to promote NZ’s exceptional winemaking ability by offering guests the opportunity to discover NZ’s highlights on their very own journey. An opportunity for the world to be introduced to the elegant, textural and fine examples of the grape that accounts for 72% of New Zealand’s wine industry”.

Add a comment