New Zealand

Marlborough sauvignon blanc is the most successful single wine style invented in the last fifty years. The first vines went in during 1973. By the 1990s the style, pungently aromatic with passionfruit, gooseberry and cut grass, had become the world's reference point for the grape, and it now accounts for the large majority of New Zealand's exports. The cause is climate: long cool days, cold nights, high sunlight hours and free-draining stony soils on the Wairau plain.

The country is long, narrow and maritime, so nowhere is far from the sea and the whole vineyard is cool. Central Otago, in the south of the South Island, is the exception, a continental pocket among mountains and the southernmost commercial wine region in the world. It makes the country's best pinot noir, alongside Martinborough and North Canterbury.

New Zealand achieves the highest average export price per litre of any significant wine country. That is partly quality and partly structure: production is small, costs are high, and there is no cheap end to drag the average down. Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand covers over 96 percent of the vineyard area, which is the highest national certification rate anywhere.

The risk is concentration. One grape, from one region, into a few English-speaking markets, is a narrow base. Chardonnay from Hawke's Bay and Kumeu, Hawke's Bay syrah and cabernet blends from the Gimblett Gravels, and aromatic whites from Nelson are the strongest arguments that the country is broader than its reputation.