2020 Watford Hornets Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc – 6 pack

94 points / 5 stars            Sam Kim, Wine Orbit

It’s brilliantly expressed, showing green kiwifruit, kaffir lime, rockmelon and lemon zest aromas on the nose, leading to a wonderfully concentrated palate displaying excellent focus and persistency. It’s deliciously styled and immensely appealing. At its best: now to 2024.

95 points / 5 stars            Bob Campbell MW

Tangy, punchy sauvignon blanc with typical Awatere gooseberry, green capsicum, tomato leaf and subtle tropical fruit flavours. Intense wine with nice acid tension and a lingering finish. A very classy sauvignon.

93 points Excellent            Cameron Douglas MS

Expressive, varietal fruity and quietly savoury scented bouquet. Aromas and flavours of lemon and sweet hay, passion fruit and crush rock minerality then a saline salivating effect. Other flavours of apple and grapefruit then a soft leesy texture add depth and complexity. Balanced and well made with a lengthy and generous finish. Best drinking from today and through 2023.

93 points / 5 stars            Candice Chow, Raymond Chan Wine Reviews

Bright, pale straw-yellow, even colour throughout. The nose is vibrant and youthful, soft aromas of blackcurrants leading the bouquet, melded with blackcurrant leaves, lime, along with seaweed and stony minerals. Medium-light bodied, dry to taste, fresh aromas of lime, blackcurrants have a taut core, subtle blackcurrant leaves and white pepper growing more prominent lingers with crisp, stony minerals to a refreshing finish. The acidity is electric and seamless, flows along a round-edged palate with subtle phenolic textured-line with ease. This is a vibrant Sauvignon Blanc with flavours of blackcurrants and lime, savoury and mineral details with brilliant acidity.

4.5 stars            Michael Cooper

Offering good value, the punchy 2020 vintage is a single-vineyard wine with a highly aromatic, freshly herbaceous bouquet. Full of youthful vigour, it has very good intensity of melon, passionfruit, lime and green capsicum flavours, with an appetisingly crisp, lengthy finish.

Viticulture

Our vines are managed through VSP trellising at a higher density than normal with 2666 plants per hectare.  Planted in 1998, these Sauvignon Blanc vines are now some of the oldest in Marlborough and the wines are now much more complex than they were when we first started.  The old gnarly vines have built up good carbohydrate reserves that aid in the ripening process and the roots have grown much deeper and are now finding older soils to source the nutrients the vines need.

The 2020 season was a hot and dry season.  Irrigation management was crucial to keeping the vines not only alive, but healthy enough to provide good flavour development in the fruit.  Thankfully there were no significant rain events and the vines happily ripened the grapes slightly ahead of other years due to the warmer weather earlier in the season.

Winemaking

Every year our Sauvignon Blanc is picked over several nights and each parcel is harvested for specific flavours to compliment the final blend.

These parcels are processed and fermented separately under cool conditions and left on yeast lees to mature.

Wine Analysis

pH        3.20

TA        7.3 g/L

Alc       13.0%

RS       1.48 g/L

The Upper Awatere is known for its rugged soils, unforgiving climate and stunning Sauvignon Blanc flavours.

Strong winds, scorching daytime temperatures, and cool clear nights contribute to the development of the amazing flavours found in Sauvignon Blanc grapes.

Our single-vineyard Sauvignon Blanc is crafted by this terroir, creating wines that are pristine, refined and well balanced, with a strong sense of place.