Mahi Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2022

Mahi Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2022Dry style Partial barrel ferment Tropical fruit Creamy & textural This wine shows an array of fruit characters, ranging from citrus through to tropical notes. This is complemented by some secondary characters from the natural yeast ferments and some barrel aging. The palate has an elegant structure with a creamy, textural mid palate and a long finish. This year, our 22nd, was again distinctive and again it was early and some serious rainfall at

• Dry style
• Partial barrel-ferment
• Tropical fruit
• Creamy & textural

This wine shows an array of fruit characters, ranging from citrus through to tropical notes. This is complemented by some secondary characters from the natural yeast ferments and some barrel aging. The palate has an elegant structure with a creamy, textural mid-palate and a long finish.

This year, our 22nd, was again distinctive and again it was early and some serious rainfall at veraison meant that the berries were bigger this year, so the crops were slightly higher. Starting on March the 10th we harvested quickly and finished the earliest ever. It was not a hot vintage, so the flavours were retained, but we felt the grapes were fragile so picked quickly as things ripened. We saw early on that it was a bigger year and, with cooler easterlies winds predominating, we decided to drop some bunches early on, up to 18 bunches a vine in one parcel!? This really helped as the vines managed to get the remaining bunches ripe and we were happy with the health of the fruit. April saved us also as it only had 19% of normal rainfall and we nearly had the last month of no rain, which was so good. Slightly lower sugars this year means the wine is perhaps more elegant and refined but it still shows the texture we are looking for.

The focus with this wine is to provide a drink that has texture and depth, rather than focussing solely on primary fruit notes. We want a wine that satisfies across the palate and employ a number of techniques to achieve this. Our Sauvignon this year comes from five different vineyards, all of them giving particular attributes to the final wine. The hand-picked fruit was whole cluster pressed so that the time on skins was minimised. A portion of this juice, 11% this year, was barrel fermented in seasoned French barriques to give greater weight, though ensuring that wood is not evident on the nose. The balance of the wine was fermented cool to retain the fruit characters from our vineyards. The native ferment portion, 21%, also adds levels of flavour and texture, giving a savoury note that balances some sweeter fruit. The final blend was made solely from free-run juice, as we feel it gives a more elegant and subtle wine, a key for us.

Mahi, meaning ‘our work, our craft’, began in 2001, fulfilling a dream of ours. After 15 vintages it was time to do our own thing. With a strong focus on single-vineyard wines, and now backed up by a series of premium regional wines from Marlborough, the idea behind Mahi is to respect and promote the individuality of the various vineyards. The Mahi symbol represents the strength, life, and growth of the native New Zealand frond (fern), with the understanding that wine should never be rushed to bottle, respecting its ability to evolve naturally over time.