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This puts New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc firmly in the same price/perceived quality bracket as Lambrusco and Blue Nun.

Germany made exactly the same mistake in the 1970s and 80s by flooding the UK and US markets with unpotable stuff like Black Tower and Blue Nun.

It’s taken until now to shed the image of “cheap, sweet and nasty” (and it still persists)

People will start saying “I tried some wine from New Zealand once. It was very ordinary and I shan’t bother again.”

Non-vintage as far as I can tell, just a fancy name thought up over a booze-fuelled lunch by some advertising clown to mask the fact that it’s excess product from one of the mega-wineries.

How to degrade the brand value of a country without even trying…..