Loveblock Is New New Zealand Wine

“Though I would be surprised if Erica and Kim Crawford were not sick of hearing about their old winery, Kim Crawford Wines, I need to mention it in this discussion. Kim Crawford the wine label put New Zealand on the world wine map with its lean and green sauvignon blanc in a way that has transformed an entire country’s industry like no other wine has transformed a country’s industry in the world (source: me).

That’s a bold statement, I know, but consider these two facts: 86% of New Zealand’s global wine exports are sauvignon blanc, while 95% of what they send to the United States is sauvignon blanc. When people think “wine” and “New Zealand,” they think sauvignon blanc. And then almost immediately they probably think Kim Crawford, which, as the largest selling New Zealand sauvignon blanc in America, is the country’s the most ubiquitous.

Erica and Kim no longer own Kim Crawford, nor do they have any role in its operations, so it’s understandable if they’ve grown tired of talking or hearing about it. But the success of the label is their own doing, so I imagine they’ve learned to deal, if for no other reason than it gave them the resources necessary to start a new winery called Loveblock, which, while an endeavor to make money, is at its soul a passion project[…]”

Read the full article here.

Good Vitis (May 2019)