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Assessment:
Lively, tightly structured wine but with a generous, supple mid palate and a fine, long finish. The crisp acid edge and fine grain texture balances the wine and gives a long savoury finish.

Aroma:
Fine spicy aroma of herbs and dry grass. Fresh, fragrant and complex. Nothing heavy or vegetal.

Colour:
Pale straw with a light green tinge.

Palate:
Fresh fruit with a lively, juicy and full on the palate and a lingering, fresh acid edge to the finish. Long and gently textural.

Oak maturation:
None.

Alcohol:
11.5% by volume

pH:
3.06

TA (g/L):
7.3

Closure:
Screw cap

Serving suggestion:
Cool to cold. Best between 5 and 10°C.

Food suggestion:
Ideal with seafood but can be enjoyed with a wide range of foods or on its own.

Cellaring:
Will develop the character of classically aged Sauvignon with time. Can be enjoyed young and will surprise those who cellar it with its subtlety and complexity.

Winemaking:
Crush, de-stem, gently air bag press. Clear settle juice and cold ferment to dryness. Our approach is to make the wine as naturally as possible with minimal additions. The fresh aromatics of the fruit are retained and, with gentle air bag pressing, harsh extractives are not generated.

Vintage:
A mild and wet October and November (208mm) followed by no rain of significance till post harvest. The good news is that we still had sufficient moisture in the soil to get our deep rooted old Sauvignon vines healthily through to harvest without irrigation. Rainfall October to March was total was 258mm close to our average of 221. Worth noting that in the average growing season rainfall has decreased over the past the 43 years we have been taking records from 281mm (1984 to 1994) to now 209mm.( 2016 to 2026).

Heat Degree Days (HDD) for the season was 1327. Our average is 1275. Harvest on 28th of March which is just after our average harvest date of 24th March. Perfect time for harvest. Harvest occurred in mild, dry weather which was excellent.

A feature if this year was flavour at relatively low sugar levels meaning lower final alcohol level. We had beautiful ripe flavour at 10.8 Be. Final alcohol was 11.5% compared with the average alcohol of our Sauvignon blanc wines of 13.2% over 32 vintages from 1994.

Low crops (close to 2kg per vine) meant early ripening. Post verasion is the most crucial time for flavour development and it was thankfully free from heat extremes. Veraison is when the pea like berries expand and soften and start to accumulate sugar and, of course, flavour.

The dry season meant there was no problem with fungal diseases and lovely ripe, high acid fruit was harvested in fine weather. Our old dry grown vines do show the benefit, I believe, from deep roots sustaining them drawing on water well down past 1m soil depth. Shallow vine roots are more subject to downpours and dry spells whilst deep rooted vines have a steady but restricted supply of water which is crucial for flavour development and limits the naturally vigorous Sauvignon vines.