Tomorrow is International Sauvignon Blanc Day and it’s especially important to New Zealand, the world HQ of Sauvignon Blanc.

The most planted grape in New Zealand and responsible for over 85% of this country’s wine exports, Sauvignon Blanc is made in an increasingly wide range of styles from upfront, fruity and off dry to creamy, complex, new wave fumé styles to dry, flinty wines that bear more than mere passing resemblance to good Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé. Enter the new 2020 Hunter’s Home Block Sauvignon Blanc, which is made from this iconic Marlborough winery’s home block vineyard on Rapaura Road. This vineyard is now being set up as a sustainable one with zero herbicides, mechanical under vine weeding and inter row cover crops. The wine made from here is intended to be an expression of this with hand picked picked which were fermented in tank and large French oak puncheons followed by a period of aging in stainless steel on yeast lees. The result is a dry, flinty, fleshy wine with weight and texture. I love the fact it contains 1.02 grams per litre of residual sugar. It stands in stark contrast to the sea of sameness when it comes to mainstream Sauvignon Blanc, as do the great dry whites of Clos Henri, one of which featured on this site here a few weeks back.

Here are the buying details for the new 2020 Hunter’s Home Block Sauvignon Blanc, $29.90, available in limited quantities from www.hunters.co.nz