Innocent Bystander Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2015
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Bright aromas of lemon and grapefruit peel and fresh passionfruit. Palate shows lemons, peach and nectarine, but with a lip smacking fresh acidity that keeps you longing for the next glass. The experience is crisp, zesty and refreshing.
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Wine Enthusiast
This Australian (Yarra Valley-based) brand has bottled an excellent Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It’s plump and ample in the mouth, while the aromas are laced with hints of struck flint, snow pea, celery leaf and gooseberry, all woven into fine balance and possessing a long, mouthwatering finish.
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Innocent Bystander is an estate-based wine grower and winemaker in the Yarra Valley, one hour east of Melbourne, Australia, crafting wines to reflect the purest interpretation of each varietal. Innocent Bystander’s close-knit team has a long standing track record delivering a range of wines with a personality all their own: distinctly regional and varietally expressive. In 2023, its wineries and vineyards were certified sustainable by Sustainable Winegrowing Australia.
Winemaking, headed by Joel Tilbrook, is carried out at Innocent Bystander’s modern artisanal winery, a facility designed for hand-crafting small, individual batches of wine with a natural winemaking philosophy, while making quality the priority. Using 100% hand-picked fruit, wild ferments and gravity-flow winemaking techniques, the wines are made with minimal filtration and fining.
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.