Using Sauvignon Blanc fruit from the Beacon Hill vineyard in Marlborough’s Waihopai Valley. The bottle has a new style of label for the brand, designed in house by Arabella Waghorn and Finn Scott-Kelly. The label also has a reference to Astrolabe’s urban Small Town Winery in Blenheim (which opened in March 2024, the same as this vintage).
Hand-picked and whole-bunch fruit went through a gentle press, with only cuvée juice used. After ferment the wine was aged in old French puncheons for eight months, and finally finished for two months in a new 3000 litre Austrian oak fuder. Aromas of grapefruit, apple, white peach and gooseberry are underpinned with that subtle woody note, with baking spice and green herbs too. Restrained, complex and quite tight (for now). The palate has a spine of crisp, saline acidity and a prickle of stony minerality. Broad and textural – that time in barrel on lees has really rounded out the middle, and the finish is quite harmonic, with the fruit returning and the freshness keeping going. One for the cellar. 92pts
