Winemaker Notes
Pale straw with green highlights, this Sauvignon Blanc offers focused aromas of jalapeño, nettle, lime zest, lemongrass, and fresh herbs. The palate is linear and pure, delivering clean flavors of currants, gooseberry, and citrus, finishing savory, crisp, and dry. While highly enjoyable when young and fresh, it will age gracefully with careful cellaring. It pairs beautifully with green-lipped mussels, goat’s cheese, tabbouleh, fresh herbs, and peppery leaves, and is best served chilled.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very refined and focused sauvignon blanc with sliced green melon and cinnamon. Medium-bodied, it has creamy texture and a delicious finish with just the right amount of flint undertone.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2024 Awatere Valley Sauvignon Blanc is excellent. It is crunchy, green, piercingly intense, leafy/herbal, maritime and enduring through the finish. This is a magnificent Sauvignon Blanc—distinct and packed with personality. Perhaps it is possible to overlook the phenolics through the finish in favor of the fruit, which is so concentrated and impressive; but it would be an oversight steeped in error, as the wine has a chalky balance and draw that tempers the fruit power. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
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.