Te Pa Reserve Collection Hillside Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2018

Description

Dry

• Dry Style
• Nectarine
• Citrus
• Crisp finish

"Last tasted nearly two years ago, the wine has matured nicely with more weight, a silkier texture and better flavour integration. A serious sauvignon with gooseberry, green capsicum and restrained passionfruit flavours" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Aug 2020

"This is an impressively styled sauvignon from hand-picked grapes grown in the Awatere Valley. The elegantly lifted bouquet shows nectarine, grapefruit, lemon peel and sweet basil aromas with a touch of oatmeal complexity. It is superbly concentrated and persistent on the palate with outstanding depth and intensity, wonderfully structured by firm acidity. Beautifully poised and flowing to a stunning linear finish. At its best: now to 2024" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, May 2019

"Bright, pale straw-yellow colour with some depth, lighter on the rim. The nose is beautifully refined with elegantly concentrated aromas of pungent passionfruit along with an amalgam of soft fresh herbs and tropical fruits unfolding white florals and saline, chalky mineral detail. This has finesse and purity of expression. Dry to taste and medium-full bodied, the palate has a concentrated core of deeply packed pungent passionfruit flavours melded with herbs and tropical fruits and a layering of chalky, mouthwatering minerals. The wine flows along a light-textured, fine phenolic line with fresh and racy background acidity enlivening the mouthfeel. The wine carries to a lingering finish of passionfruit and minerals. This is a refined, but concentrated, passionfruity and minerally Sauvignon Blanc with clarity and purity on a fine-textured palate with a refreshing mouthfeel. Match with Pacific Rim cuisine over the next 2+ years. Hand-picked fruit from the ‘C’ and ‘I’ blocks of the ‘Redwood Hills’ vineyard, Awatere, WBP and fermented in stainless-steel to 13.5% alc. and 1 g/L RS, the wine aged 6 weeks on lees, blended and given a further 2 months on lees" Raymond Chan, Wine Reviews, 2018

"The intensity and concentration here is striking with a rich, lemon-cream, lime and green passion-fruit core that delivers such long and focused style on the finish" James Suckling

Pungent aromatics of citrus, nectarine and florals with nettle and fennel notes adding intrigue and complexity. The palate is crisp and textural with impressions of stone fruit, lime, and wet rock. This wine possesses classic Awatere minerality, concentrated fruit, and a long crisp refreshing finish. 

The 2017/2018 growing season was characterised by a hot, dry summer, with healthy looking canopies and slightly lower than average bunch counts. This was followed by an extremely wet February, and then more sun in March. Flavours developed well during the warm months and so harvest started early.

The fruit for this wine was sourced from the C and I blocks of our Awatere Valley, Redwood Hills Vineyard. Just over half of the wine was sourced from C block in the middle of the slope, with the remainder coming from I block which is near the top of the slope. These Hillside blocks are all naturally low yielding, pruned to 3 canes, and are planted in soils consisting of loess over free draining gravels.

The fruit was handpicked on the 30th March (C block) and 4th April (I Block) in good condition and at just over 22 Brix. The bunches were tipped to the press without crushing, and gently pressed to tank for settling. The juice was settled for 48 hours before being racked to ferment with light fluffy lees taken. The tanks were inoculated and fermented at 12-14 º. Once fermentation had been completed the tanks were topped and left on lees for a further 6 weeks, prior to being racked and sulphured to blend. The blended wine was left on light lees for a further 2 months, before being stabilised, filtered and bottled.

100% Sauvignon Blanc

Food Pairing: Great as an aperitif or with food.