te Pa Oke Sauvignon Blanc 2020

Aromatically the wine gives impressions of stone fruit, citrus blossom, and tropical notes, all supported by lightly smoked oak with just a hint of flint. The palate is equally complex and generous. Stone fruits are balanced by lemongrass and citrus themes.

Flavours of vanilla pod, fennel, poached pear and melon are cleansed by a finish of lime driven citrus.

The oak provides a savoury foil to the wine; salted caramel and vanilla notes combined with smoke and spice.

This wine is a celebration of Marlborough and is perfectly suited to fresh seafood and light poultry dishes.

Pruned to 3 canes, on shoot thinned VSP trellising.

The naturally low vigour, low yielding Redwood Hills vineyard in the Awatere Valley produces wines with strong textural and mineral elements. This cooler site results in wines which exhibit concentration, fresh acidity, and great length.

The fruit from the MacDonald Family Home Vineyard was sourced from two complimentary and contrasting blocks – Seaside and Block 1.

The Seaside Block is compositionally higher in sand and shingle and has less organic matter. This block tends to give passionfruit and tropical flavours with nice bright acids and a hint of salinity. Block 1 has richer alluvial and sedimentary soils, which supports a healthy canopy and gives more tropical and exotic fruit flavours.

The fruit was hand-harvested and whole bunch pressed to give us some beautiful pristine juice to work with. This juice was dropped down, without settling to 320 L French oak cigars for fermentation with a mix of indigenous and non-saccharomyces yeast.

The cigar shaped barrels were chosen as they increase the surface area of the lees, which helps to build weight and texture.

The wine was left un-sulphured on gross lees over the winter.

After nine months of maturation, a selection of the best barrels was then blended, finished, and bottled as our 2020 Sauvignon Blanc Oke.