Esk Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough

Description

Esk Valley Sauvignon Blanc is made from grapes grown in the Marlborough Wine Growing region of New Zealand’s South Island. It is powerfully intense and pungently aromatic, classic Marlborough,

Esk Valley Estate started trading under the Esk Valley name in 1987, having been an established wine company since the 1930’s, when Sir George Fistonich (who also founded Villa Maria back in 1961) purchased the historic Glenvale Winery from the Bird Family in 1986. The estate is located in the heart of the Hawke’s Bay wine-growing region.

Esk Valley is considered a boutique winery and is unique in that many of the techniques used to craft its award-winning wines are dictated by the winery itself. They still use their old concrete vats and the layout of the buildings and the absence of modern technology mean the winemakers at Esk Valley have had to make wine in a simple, honest, hands-on way. Under veteran winemaker Gordon Russell Esk Valley have also broken boundaries by introducing new grape varieties and new wine styles to Hawkes Bay such as Albarino and Verdelho. Although Esk Valley is based in Hawke’s Bay (famous for their Gimblett Gravels red wines) they also have access to vineyards in Marlborough where their Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Riesling is sourced from.

The grapes for Esk Valley Sauvignon Blanc are sourced from stony vineyard sites in the Wairau Valley (40%) and further south in the cooler Awatere Valley were selected for this wine. The Wairau Valley fruit provides the blended wine with structure and tropical fruit notes while the Awatere Vineyard offers acidity and pungent notes of nettle, pea pods and gooseberry. The vineyards are all carefully managed and crop thinned in the pursuit of quality fruit. The individual vineyard parcels were harvested and transported to the winery for immediate pressing to capture the freshness of the fruit. Fermentation was conducted at cool temperatures utilising selected yeast strains. At the completion of fermentation, the finished wines were left on lees and stirred to gain richness and complexity before blending and bottling.