New Zealand's cooler climate is giving its winemakers an edge as they seek to exploit growing global demand for lighter, premium wines as rising temperatures push up the alcohol content of wines from rivals such as Australia and the United States.
The 2015 vintage of the country's flagship Sauvignon Blanc will be the first produced under a government-backed initiative to research and produce wines that dispel the image of low-alcohol, low-calorie wines as overly sweet, inferior tastes.
"There's been a global awakening to the fact that there's a limited quantity of premium lower-alcohol white wines available and we've captured the first wave of that market," said John Forrest, winemaker and owner of Forrest Wines based in Marlborough, the main producing region for New Zealand's aromatic, fruity take on the Bordeaux grape.