Marlborough sits at the top of New Zealand's South Island, where the Wairau River runs down to Cloudy Bay and the vineyards spread across a wide, sunny valley floor. Spy Valley takes its name from a signals intelligence station on the hills above the vines, which is the only reason a Sauvignon Blanc carries a name like that. The 2022 vintage is the current release.
- Sauvignon Blanc, picked cool and fermented cool.
- Marlborough, New Zealand, the Wairau Valley floor.
- 2022, a warm, dry Marlborough growing season.
- Dry, light-bodied, high in acidity.
- 13% ABV, 750ml.
How it is made
Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is picked early to keep its acid sharp and its aromatics intact, then fermented at low temperature in stainless steel. The style is deliberately reductive: no oxygen, no oak, nothing between the grape and the glass that might soften the edge. The valley's wide day-to-night temperature swing does the rest, holding acidity in the berry while the fruit ripens.
How it tastes
Grapefruit and passionfruit lead, with lime and a green, grassy streak underneath. There is a flinty note at the back, the kind that comes from the stony riverbed soils of the Wairau, and the acidity stays high from the first sip to the last. Light in body, dry throughout, with a long, clean finish. The venue's own note adds lifted florals and white peach to the front of the palate.
Where it comes from
Marlborough is New Zealand's largest wine region and the one that made the country's name abroad. Sauvignon Blanc was planted there in earnest from the 1970s, and the wines that followed set a style the rest of the world now copies but rarely matches. The Wairau Valley is the warmest, driest part of it, and the source of most of the region's best-known bottlings.
Good to know
New Zealand's wine industry is small by world standards, but Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough accounts for the great majority of everything the country exports. The style is so distinctive that it is one of the few wines a taster can place blind, from the first sniff, without knowing anything else about it.
