2023 Sauvignon Blanc
Vintage: 2023
Variety: 100% Sauvignon blanc
Region: Lenswood, Adelaide Hills.
$33.00
Assessment:
Lively, tightly structured wine but with a generous, supple mid palate and a fine, long finish. Really zingy acid edge to balance the wine and give a long savoury finish
Aroma:
Lifted aroma of cut grass and hints of flowers. Fresh, fragrant and complex. Nothing heavy or vegetal.
Colour:
Pale straw with a light green tinge.
Palate:
Fresh fruit with a lively, juicy richness on the palate and a lingering, fresh acid edge to the finish. Full, long and delicate.
Oak maturation:
None.
pH:
3.05
TA (g/L):
8.9
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:
Our seasons are significantly influenced by La Nina/El Nino and the IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole). These are indexes driven by where the warm and cool waters of both Pacific and Indian Oceans lie. In 2022/23 the result was a cool winter and later bud burst than average followed by a cooler and wetter Spring and Summer driven largely by the warm waters North off Australia in the Western Pacific.
Heat Degree Days (HDD) for the season was 1244 against an average of 1275 and we picked our Sauvignon on 10th April which is 17 days later than our average harvest date of 24th March.
The late bud burst from the cool wet winter and slow start to the growing season with a very cold October had a major influence on the harvest date.
Growing season rainfall was 353 mm. This is 80mm more than our long term average of 275 mm influence by a very wet November 22 in which we had 149mm of rain.
Crop levels were low at 1.4kg per vine. Part of this is possibly an ongoing effect of the fires and the fact that so much of our vineyard needed to be retrained. However even non fire affected vines yielded only 1.8kg per vine. Normally we harvest about 2.5kg per vine.
Mercifully we were free of fungal diseases and lovely ripe, high acid fruit was harvested in fine weather beginning 10th April. Our old largely dry grown vines do show the benefit, I believe, from deep roots sustaining them rather than more shallow ones subject to downpours and dry spells.
The low crops are a blessing in one way in that they ripen fully and in late seasons that is most important as we head into late April with cold, wet weather likely..