Winemaker Notes
From the historical Greywacke River Stone soil, their estate flagship wine, Clos Henri Sauvignon Blanc, expresses a distinctive minerality (flintiness) and elegance underlined with excellent fruit purity. It is a wine of complexity and great aging potential which will gradually reveal with age the authenticity of its origins.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a rich, highly aromatic vintage of Clos Henri’s Sauvignon. Like a nose full of dehydrated fruit (peaches and pineapples), candied ginger, pressed buttercups, grass and minerals, there’s a touch of oak influence here, too. Highly textural, the mouthfeel is rich and creamy but with vibrancy and freshness and a lengthy, tingly saline finish. A full-bodied, food-friendly drop now (try with a Thai curry), this has the ability to age until 2028
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James Suckling
Attractively fragrant wild-grass and beeswax aromas here. Some honey, too. There’s a swathe of fresh and lively fruit on the palate with a sleek, compact and long, lemon-pastry finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Partly (10%) barrel-matured, with the rest seeing extended lees contact, don't be alarmed that the 2018 Sauvignon Blanc is the current release from this offshoot of Loire-based Henri Bourgeois. Somehow, it captures some of that asparagus-like character often found in Sancerre and combines it with enough New World citrus fruit to be pretty darn tasty. Medium to full-bodied, it shows more vegetal notes than I generally prefer, yet it balances those with generosity and concentration on the palate, and attractive grapefruit flavors emerge on the lingering 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.