Wither Hills Wairau Valley Sauvignon Blanc (EU) 2022

Distinctly Marlborough, Wither Hills Wairau Valley Sauvignon Blanc is refined and elegant. Mouth-watering, textural acidity and a juicy core of citrus fruit excludes notes of crunchy greens and tropical guava on the nose.

Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc V20' Tasting

Strategically situated sites around Marlborough featuring alluvial gravels, fertile silt loam, clay and pea gravels maximising soil diversity and therefore flavour and profile diversity. Niche style pockets from sites like Rarangi.

Sugar levels were slightly lower in 2022. Flavours came on early and the wines are looking intense. Fresh cut grass, citrus, and herbaceous characters are very evident in the various batches, but also great intensity on the palate, with some nice richness in the form of passionfruit and guava. A lower ABV is balanced by intense classical fresh Marlborough characters.

Vintage 2021 was similar to vintage 2020 in that we had a beautiful warm summer with lower the usual rainfall. The season started cold with 10 frost events where the temperature dipped below 0°C. Budburst and flowering both came early this season and we saw this across all varieties. A cool period around flowering had a big effect on flowering numbers and hence we recorded one of our lightest vintages for some years. The early season trend continued right through to picking, where we harvested the first of our fruit on the 22nd Feb 2021. (2nd earliest ever) The good weather and low yields meant more open bunch structure and lower disease pressure which was great. Ripening at harvest was slower than usual despite the lower yields, this was mainly due to the cooler weather during harvest following the warm summer. Low yields, great weather and slow ripening resulted into excellent fruit flavours and great intensity. Another stunning Marlborough vintage.

Our vineyards were harvested at optimum flavour ripeness. The fruit from each vineyard was kept separate throughout the wine making process to ensure integrity of each site and to provide the greatest possible blending combinations. The fruit was gently pressed, clarified and cool fermented with selected yeast strains to enhance the unique aromatics and flavours. After fermentation the wines remained on light yeast lees to enhance palate feel and structure. The wine was then racked, blended, filtered, and bottled to retain and capture the remarkable freshness of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

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