Greywacke Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2021

Description

Dry

• Dry style
• Partial barrel-ferment
• Golden peach & poached pear
• Baked apple

A delightful fusion of ripe summer fruit and delicate floral perfume – Golden Queen peaches and poached yellow pears; baked apples, mango and rock melon; mingled with apple blossom fragrance and a twist of lemon sherbet. Succulent and crisp, with a delicate fennel-like herbal quality and a dry, textural palate. Quintessentially Marlborough, but a deliciously subtle, ripe interpretation of the classic style.

Fruit was sourced from various prime vineyard sites in Marlborough’s Southern Valleys and the central Wairau Plains (specifically Woodbourne, Renwick and Rapaura). Soil types vary from the young alluvial soils of Rapaura and Renwick, which contain high proportions of New Zealand’s ubiquitous greywacke river stones, to the older and denser clay-loams of the Southern Valleys. The majority of the vineyards were trained using the divided Scott Henry canopy management system, with the balance on a two- or three-cane VSP (vertical shoot positioning) trellis.

Harvested largely by machine during cool (often cold) night-time conditions, the sauvignon blanc grapes were trucked to our winery in the Omaka Valley, where they were lightly pressed to yield a modest volume of high-quality juice. The juice was cold-settled and racked prior to fermentation, which was primarily carried out in stainless steel tanks with cultured yeast. A portion of the juice was allowed to undergo spontaneous indigenous yeast fermentation in old oak barrels.

All individual vineyard batches were left on lees and kept separate until late June, when the blend was assembled. The wine was bottled in mid-August with alcohol 14.0%, pH 3.16 and acidity 6.8 g/l.