Each year the fruit is slightly different and so the blending is constantly interesting. This year we have increased the barrel and wild portions, now 11% for both.The fruit intensity allowed this and we will keep assessing the blends on an annual basis, aiming to make ‘real’ wines that express our vineyards and personalities. 

The focus with this wine is to provide a drink that has texture and depth, rather than focussing solely on primary fruit notes. We want a wine that satisfies across the palate and employ a number of techniques to achieve this.

 Our Sauvignon this year comes from seven different vineyards, all of them giving particular attributes to the final wine. In order to attain greater texture we pick ripe fruit, wanting texture rather than primary fruit on the nose. This year the first fruit for the blend was picked from the Boundary Farm vineyard and finished with a late portion from the Wadworth block.

The hand-picked fruit was whole-cluster pressed so that the time on skins was minimised. A portion of this juice was barrel-fermented in older French oak to give greater weight, though ensuring that wood is not evident on the nose. The balance of the wine was fermented cool to retain the fruit characters from our vineyards.