Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Another Sauvignon in the tasting to have a reduced nose of struck match and a creamy palate, this fills out with tangerine, vanilla and spice. It's balanced by appley acidity and good intensity. It's a complete juxtaposition to Joel Delaunay's Touraine, which admittedly made it a bit easier to identify it as a Marlborough Sauvignon.
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James Suckling
This has all the complexity seen in great white wines with plenty of savory influence. Grilled nuts adorn biscuity and flinty lemon and grapefruit pith. The palate has punchy dried-peach and lemon flavors, as well as an appealing, very succulent and carefully layered texture.
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Wine Spectator
This is vibrant, fragrant and generous, with honeysuckle, Key lime, lemongrass and fresh ginger notes that mingle with grapefruit and pear flavors. Impressive for the intensity, showing a smooth body, refreshing acidity and long, lingering finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I've just stated in my tasting note for the 2022 Wild Sauvignon that the wine ages well—I am so glad to be able to explain that via this 2016 Wild Sauvignon here today. At eight years of age, the wine is showing a little golden in the glass and has a nose of paraffin wax, bitter almonds, preserved citrus, white peach and a hint of asphalt/petrichor. In the mouth, the wine is powerful, composed, spicy, mouthfilling and concentrated.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ex-Cloudy Bay winemaker Kevin Judd's wines are never shy and never boring. This wine is an opulent Sauvignon, quite the opposite of the Marlborough style most are familiar with. Wild fermented in oak barrels, it's a heady combo of lemon, toast, salted cashew and wild herb. The full-bodied palate is highly textural but not heavy thanks to a good lick of acidity. Herbs, lemon rind and toasty oak ripple right through the finish.
Capable of a vast array of styles, Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, refreshing variety that equally reflects both terroir and varietal character. Though it can vary depending on where it is grown, a couple of commonalities always exist—namely, zesty acidity and intense aromatics. This variety is of French provenance. Somm Secret—Along with Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc is a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. That green bell pepper aroma that all three varieties share is no coincidence—it comes from a high concentration of pyrazines (herbaceous aromatic compounds) inherent to each member of the family.
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.