Churton Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough (ORGANIC & BIODYNAMIC) 2020

Wine Type:
Style of Wine:	Fruity & Smooth
Country of Origin:	New Zealand
Wine Region:	Marlborough
Grape Varietal:	Sauvignon Blanc
Bottle Format:	750mL
Case Size:	12 bottles
$367.80 Per Case ($30.65/btl)

Tasting Notes

Tasting Note:
Perfumed with mineral, citrus and floral characteristics with a hint of savouriness, the palate is bone dry with fresh crisp fruit a smooth creaminess leading through to a wonderful aromatic peach and citrus component on the finish with clean acidity. A complex and subtle wine with a lingering savoury and mineral flavour.

Vineyard:
A warm dry spring led to excellent flowering. Almost as soon the flowering was over we had a good deal of rain. In fact 120mm of rain between 20th December and 7th January, this led to excellent berry development with good cell division and growth. The result was well formed bunches that were full with large berries.

Yield control then became a major issue. We are rigorous about this and limit our yields to a maximum of 75hl per ha. This was achieved through green harvesting any part of the vineyards that were over cropped. The summer finished with a flourish with a normal than normal March which led to a very early harvest. We picked the small but perfectly formed crop from our own vineyard on Easter Saturday 22nd March and the balance was harvested by the end of the first week of April. This just underlined to us the advantage of keeping crop loads down as weather conditions seriously deteriorated thereafter.

Winemaking:
All fruit from our vineyard was hand-picked and gently whole bunch pressed. This was then settled for only 12 hour period and then racked to large 500l French oak barrels where it underwent a relatively fast warm ferment. The fruit from our vineyard is very well suited to this treatment it has great intensity of aroma is fully ripe (we only pick yellow bunches) and is low in herbaceousness. This portion was then matured on lees for 5 months prior to racking and blending with the balance of wine.

Other components are treated variously with more hand-picked fruit being fermented in tank and lees aged. We now see the overall benefit of hand picking; it makes up more than 20% of our total blend. It provides finesse, delicacy and poise to our wines. The balance is treated in a more conventional manner: machine picked and clarified to brightness and cool fermented to retain maximum fruit and aroma. Following blending in August the wine was treated very gently with protective handling techniques to retain the freshness and aromatic intensity. It was lightly fined with isinglass and milk then filtered prior to bottling in late September.

Critical Praise