Michael Berry (and NZPA) writes in the Malborough Express about the $12million FoRST grant which will fund research into sauvignon blanc over the next 6 years.
The research is looking into how to broaden the range of flavours in the wine, and lead to the ability to tailor wine tastes for different markets/countries.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“The programme is led by Plant &Food Research, with research continuing at Lincoln and Auckland universities and the Marlborough Wine Research Centre.
“Plant&Food Research senior scientist Mike Trought said the research gave the industry information to help make consistently good sauvignon blanc. It also examined ways to use geography, growing conditions and winemaking techniques to broaden the range of flavours in the wine.
“The researchers could determine how to create a certain taste that could be used to engineer wine for a particular market, especially developing markets such as China and Japan, he said.”