Tasting Notes
Only the very best fruit is used for our Reserve Sauvignon Blanc and the exceptional 2010 vintage saw the fruit harvested at optimum flavours and ripeness, which has produced a top class Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It is an intensely flavoured Sauvignon, displaying lifted aromas on the nose of feijoa, passionfruit, gooseberry and capsicum characters. The palate is vibrant and racy with excellent fruit weight. It has great texture, intensity and concentration and the rich succulent fruit is balanced with a lingering natural acidity. A generous Sauvignon with a lovely juicy mouth feel.
Food Matching
With this quality Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc showing such intensity and concentration, we consider it is best matched with comparable crisp succulent dishes or alternatively full flavoursome slightly sweeter dishes. The 'yin and yan' can work perfectly here with the crisp acidity of the Sauvignon ideally complimenting a caramelised mandarin ceviche for example. It is also suited to fresh seafood, shellfish and white meat dishes. At its best now until 2013.
Viticulture and Winemaking
The 2010 vintage in Marlborough continued the fine run of exceptional vintages from this region. Bud burst was slightly earlier then 2009 due to an unseasonably warm August. Thankfully, given this early start we didn't experience any frost issues but there were a number of cool nights to keep everyone on edge. Fruit set was slightly below the average, meaning the crops were naturally low and would prove invaluable later in the season. By late January the summer remained cooler than normal meaning the Growing Degree Days tracked 1 - 2 weeks behind the long term average and with some midsummer rain caused some concern about the ability of crops to fully ripen. By early March what we've come to expect as the typical Marlborough autumn - fresh cool nights and sunny cloudless days - allowed the moderately cropped vines to reach full ripeness and be harvested at optimum flavours right on schedule in early April.
The fruit for this Reserve Toi Toi Sauvignon Blanc was sourced from three of our vineyard locations - mainly from our Brookdale vineyard low cropping second harvest vines in the Omaka Valley supported by our Ben Morven Rd and Awatere Valley Rd vineyards. The grapes were machine harvested in the cool morning to preserve their inherent flavours, destemmed, crushed and then lightly pressed with minimal skin contact. The clear juice was then fermented at low temperatures in stainless steel tanks with selected yeast strains to preserve the citrus fruit flavours. Following fermentation the wine was left on lees to enhance texture and complexity for 4 months before blending and prepared for bottling.