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Chardonnay

Sauvignon Blanc

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Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc 2009

It is that time of the year when the first of the year’s new releases start appearing, and the first 2009 vintage I am trying is the Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc. It is always interesting trying the first of the new vintage because you don’t quite know what to expect. Villa Maria and other wineries have told me that 2009 has been an excellent year for producing quality grapes, but you still don’t know until you try the wine.

Villa Maria’s winemakers sourced fruit for this wine from vineyards across the Marlborough region. A blend of fruit grown in the Wairau and Awatere Valleys and spanning a different range of meso-climates was chosen. For those of you who are wondering, the meso-climate is the climate in a small area like a vineyard, or a hillside. It is the one people often mean when they mention the micro-climate. A micro-climate in the vineyard sense refers to the climate directly around the vine, it’s canopy and its fruit. You might not know that within the vine there are micro-climates and there can be differences between the inner and outer canopy.

Villa Maria ensured that despite the spread of the vineyards, careful attention was paid to vine health so the fruit would develop strong clean flavours. The vineyards produced grapes which were harvested at varying degrees of ripeness over a five week period, providing an array of flavours and blending options.

When the fruit arrived at the winery, it was crushed, pressed and settled for 24 hours before being racked clean off press solids for fermentation. Both neutral and aromatic yeast strains were used for the cool fermentation. The wine was bottled shortly after fermentation in order to create a vibrant, fresh wine.

I found the pale coloured Villa Maria 2009 Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc to have vibrant aromas of fruit salad and passionfruit with a hint of gooseberry. On the palate, this wine exhibits juicy, vibrant and intense flavours primarily of gooseberry and citrus, especially mandarins, grapefruit and limes. It has a crisp, clean and elegant finish. I was particularly surprised to find how well the wine is drinking now as I thought it would still be a bit young. I would expect this wine will be able to be enjoyed at its best from now until 2011.I would recommend trying it with pan fried fish.

Reviewed by Stephen Clark (14/8/2009)
 

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