{"id":6539,"date":"2009-10-05T02:13:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T02:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/so-long-charddy-bring-on-the-blanc\/"},"modified":"2009-10-05T02:13:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-05T02:13:00","slug":"so-long-charddy-bring-on-the-blanc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2009\/10\/so-long-charddy-bring-on-the-blanc\/","title":{"rendered":"SO LONG CHARDDY \u2013 BRING ON THE \u2019BLANC?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Wc05Oct09<\/span><\/p>\n<p>david ellis<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_OY-0d2rKv_Q\/StE_NZxtdjI\/AAAAAAAAHUs\/Siu4brmequc\/s1600-h\/LOG1558_SauvBlanc09_HiRes-789361.jpg\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391159728429430322\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_OY-0d2rKv_Q\/StE_NZxtdjI\/AAAAAAAAHUs\/Siu4brmequc\/s320\/LOG1558_SauvBlanc09_HiRes-789361.jpg\" \/><\/a>IF you were a grower or a winemaker prepared to take a punt on a just-conducted survey of our wine-drinking habits, you&#8217;d be chopping out your Chardonnay, swooning over your Sauvignon Blanc, and planting Pinot Noir.<\/p>\n<p>The survey, amongst guests and diners at Mercure Hotels&#8217; 23-properties across Australia, found drinkers were turning off Chardonnay in their droves \u2013 making it the fastest-declining white variety in the popularity stakes.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, sales of Sauvignon Blanc through the Mercure Groups&#8217; restaurants and bars increased 47% over the past two years, and while Shiraz was the overwhelmingly most popular red in the same period (followed closely by Cabernet blends,) the fastest-growing red wine of choice was Pinot Noir.<\/p>\n<p>And probably not surprisingly the survey found New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc\u00a0 leading the field in popularity, but with Aussie labels catching up as diners seek out local food-friendly wines \u2013 something Sauvignon Blanc certainly is.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_OY-0d2rKv_Q\/StE_NiDm6SI\/AAAAAAAAHU0\/p9KDfIkHvfY\/s1600-h\/Richland+Sav+Blanc-790853.jpg\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391159730651982114\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_OY-0d2rKv_Q\/StE_NiDm6SI\/AAAAAAAAHU0\/p9KDfIkHvfY\/s320\/Richland+Sav+Blanc-790853.jpg\" \/><\/a>Riesling was another variety to take a hammering in the survey, and interest-ingly it was women leading the charge on Sauvignon Blanc (as well as better sparklings and lighter reds.) A majority of men still preferred reds to whites.<\/p>\n<p>ONE FOR LUNCH: In our own tasting of Aussie-made Sauvignon Blanc, we gave our thumbs-up for Best Value For Money to Westend&#8217;s 2009 Richland from the Riverina \u2013 a nicely full-bodied and richly textured wine with loads of tropical fruit flavours, a dry crisp finish and a hard-to-beat \u00a0$11.99 price tag.<\/p>\n<p>Best Food Match: Logan Wines&#8217; 2009 Sauvignon Blanc from Orange \u2013 plenty of zingy lime, pink grapefruit, green mango and minerality ($22;) Best Party Room SB: Wicks Estate Adelaide Hills 2009 \u2013 an $18 beauty of a quaffer with herbaceous and tropical fruit flavours; Best Value Import: The Crossing 2008 SB from New Zealand&#8217;s Marlborough, an undeniable ripper at $16.99.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy all these wines with shellfish, Asian stir fries or stronger cheeses.<\/p>\n<p>(NEED A FOOD\/DRINK IDEA? Check out\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vintnews.com\/\">http:\/\/www.vintnews.com<\/a> )<\/p>\n<p>PHOTO CAPTIONS:<\/p>\n<p>[] THUMBS-up for Best Value For Money local Sauvignon Blanc<\/p>\n<p>[] GREAT food match \u2013 particularly shellfish, Asian stir fries and strong cheeses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wc05Oct09 david ellis IF you were a grower or a winemaker prepared to take a punt on a just-conducted survey of our wine-drinking habits, you&#8217;d be chopping out your Chardonnay, swooning over your Sauvignon Blanc, and planting Pinot Noir. The survey, amongst guests and diners at Mercure Hotels&#8217; 23-properties across Australia, found drinkers were turning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}