Otuwhero Estate OTU Limited Release Sauvignon Blanc 2021
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Perfect delicate yellow. Lime zest, red grapefruit, stone fruit – opens up to bolder tomato skin notes over time. A refined, bold and intensely vibrant Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc - distinctively Awatere Valley, sourced solely from our finest yielding blocks on the OTU Wine Estate. Bold intensity of ripe melon and lime zest build across the palate, offset by vibrant green apple acidity. Crisp and full-bodied with exceptional depth, this wine showcases outstanding minerality and length.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Offers vibrant Key lime pie, passion fruit and celery salt notes paired with ripe, fleshy and lush melon flavors at the core, with a refreshing thread of acidity.
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Wine Enthusiast
A heady musky perfume envelops the senses. There’s a bit of onion peel reduction, but the passion fruit, lime, grapefruit and fresh green bell pepper notes win out. The palate is dry with persistent, mouth[1]puckering acidity. Though this wine is still very young, its bones are strong. It just needs another year or two in the bottle to flesh out some more.
OTU Wine Estate brings together a unique, sea-swept terroir set at the edge of the Southern Ocean – where the ancient Otuwhero River runs through the lower valleys of Marlborough New Zealand – with an expert group of passionate people drawn from around the world of wine.
Cradled between snowy mountains and at the edge of the South Pacific Ocean, OTU Wine Estate is remote coastal and rugged terroir – and along with low vigor soils and long sunshine hours, produces distinctively bold, ripe fruit flavors, and exquisitely expressive wines. Planted entirely in Sauvignon Blanc at the outset, OTU Estate is made up of multiple vineyard blocks, predominantly planted on exposed north eastern facing slopes which now include Pinot Noir.
Capable of a vast array of styles, Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, refreshing variety that equally reflects both terroir and varietal character. Though it can vary depending on where it is grown, a couple of commonalities always exist—namely, zesty acidity and intense aromatics. This variety is of French provenance. Somm Secret—Along with Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc is a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. That green bell pepper aroma that all three varieties share is no coincidence—it comes from a high concentration of pyrazines (herbaceous aromatic compounds) inherent to each member of the family.
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.