After the streets of Hong Kong where the noise, the people and the traffic, draw the sweat from your pores, mix it with exhaust an then, like a professional mugger, add a touch of nervousness, touching down in New Zealand was a relief. Walking out of the terminal let me inhale that clean refreshing air, nothing to it, no exhaust,people, nothing except air.
The purity of the air is reflected in the national grape variety, Sauvignon Blanc, carrying all the freshness on an exciting acidity with a good dose of thiols, delivering a wash of grassy, gooseberry fruit, straight to your taste buds. As the wine washes over your tongue little chemoreceptors, taste buds, are stimulated by its presence. These sensory neurons fire off electrical pulses,that zip along axons, jumping the nodes of Ranvier onto other axons increasing speed as they travel from your tongue to your brain like a tidal charge. These electronic translations of wine smash into neuron end-plates and then the flavour gets passed into the brain, which lets you know how what you've just lifted from the glass tastes like. The message travels from your tongue to your brain at 268mph, covering the 5cm distance like a flash, so before you've put you've placed your glass back down you know whether or not you like it. Thats only the half of it, you've also got sensory receptors in your nasal passage that receive gusts of aroma and then your tongue, the monogamous partner to your palette, caressing your cheeks and gums allowing you to perceive mouth feel and texture. And then there's sight.
Hunter's. Marlborough, Sauvignon Blanc. 2007
This isn't one of the most aromatic sauvignon blancs I've tasted, but an aroma of freshly cut grass and green peas, is still present.The colour' s a lemon yellow with a green tinge. In the mouth the acidity is wonderfully fresh, its all tropical and gooseberry fruit fulfilling the classic Marlborough taste sensation. Good value wine.
Wow, 268mph! Is it still as fast after you've had a bottle?
Posted by: Aneeta | 03/18/2008 at 02:36 PM