Importer Ed Barker talks about and pours three fantastic New Zealand white wines that he imports, and reminds us that New Zealand can strut its terroir just as well as Napa and the Loire!
The wine shop where I work sits awfully close to an awfully good BYOB (for now) hummus restaurant, and at least, ten times a day I get asked “what wine goes with hummus?” There are two answers to this question- one that people want to hear and one that would make people run away screaming from the wine shop.
Mimi's Hummus in Ditmas Park
What people want to hear is that the type of wine that they like is the type of wine that goes with hummus, and by “hummus” what they really mean is a melange of complex, savory, and sweet flavors that go way beyond mere hummus and could delve into any number of combinations of lamb, lemon, nuts, peppers, cucumbers, and more.
What type of wine do people like? Malbec, Rioja, and cheap Pinot Noir. Do these go with the melange of flavors served at the hummus place next door? No. These are categories with flat, simple flavors that, surrounded by a plate of Middle Eastern food, won’t do much other than quench one’s thirst like a warm glass of water.
What will both battle against and dance with puissant melange of Middle Eastern flavors? … wines with searing acidity and many folds of aroma. The best example of these are Rieslings and Valpolicella Classico. A good Riesling’s acidity will almost chew the food for you, and the tart, shrubby red fruits of Valpolicella will make sure to assert themselves strongly enough that you taste the food and the wine at once.
Of course, people who like Rioja, Malbec, and cheap Pinot Noir also are people who hate acidity and complexity because well… you can’t chug acidity and complexity.
Magnolia tree nose. Syrupy pears on the mid-palate. Crustacean shell minerality on the finish. 
The two things that stick out though are the dusty blueberry candy notes and the white (acidic, unripe) strawberry sections to the wine’s finish. It’s as if the blueberry is telling the young, unripe strawberry to hang onto it for dear life with they travel down my tongue.
Also after about an hour of being open, there is a strong half-baked peach bread to the nose that is covered in lemon pith.
It’s basically nothing like what the sales rep who sold it to me said it would be like; there is no petroleum, only a slight (candied at that!) minerality, and a merely respectable acidity.
Oh well, it’s still pretty darn good wine that does make me want a rare, buttery steak with it.