KEY POINTS:
It has been a week of questions, many of them screamed down the phone at me and others in the wine industry; others quietly asked by the growing number of unconfident wine drinkers.
The answers to the 2006 Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc controversy could see the issue as
a mere storm in a sauvignon blanc glass. But confusion and excuses remain over Wither Hills.
On the one hand, winemaker Brent Marris and Wither Hills winery have been cleared by independent audits of producing small batches of their wines specifically for entry into wine shows and competitions. This is good news for the New Zealand wine industry, whose international reputation has been constructed entirely on high quality white wines that command the highest price per litre of any wine sold in the UK.
And the one thing that everybody in the New Zealand wine industry agrees unanimously on is that Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc is high in quality and has done a great PR job for this country's export wine industry.
On Thursday the industry body, New Zealand Winegrowers, accepted the resignation of Mr Marris, as chief judge of the Air New Zealand Wine Awards. Asked on National Radio why he resigned, Mr Marris said it was due to the media furore. Which is clearly a case of shooting the messenger.
Allan Scott, of Allan Scott Wines in Marlborough, remains concerned. "If [Mr Marris] just said 'Look, I think we've screwed up a bit here and had a breakdown in the logistical process then maybe until it's cleared up I'll step down as chief judge', then perhaps it would been less of an issue," says Mr Scott.
"But it has taken six weeks to get to the light of day and that smacks of trying to bury the whole bloody thing."
So, the nagging question remains: since Wither Hills has publicly acknowledged there was variation between the earlier small bottling of its Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2006, which was submitted to various wine tastings and competitions, and the later larger bottlings, then why were the wines not labelled differently?
Mr Marris justifies his position by quoting from the audit that "the wines vary because of the standard variations one would expect to see from different vineyard sites and variations in the winemaking process".
He also asserts that he is following standard wine industry practice in bottling a wine made from grapes harvested earlier in the season than his later bottlings.
On this point, New Zealand Winegrowers' chairman Stuart Smith does not agree.
"I suggest that Brent review his position," said Mr Smith on radio. "It's certainly not what the rest of the industry practises."
Questions remain in the minds of those who understand the wine industry and even greater ones have now been raised in the minds of those who enjoy the fruits of the wine industry by buying wine to drink.
It is not the messengers - the media - who have created the questions. It is those in the wine show system.
* Joelle Thomson is the wine writer for the Herald's weekly Viva section and author of Joelle Thomson's Best Wines for Under $25. She has also been a guest judge at overseas wine shows.
