A wine with considerable personality. Formerly grape growers for Cloudy Bay and now a winemaking star in its own right. Wine for adults, get some before its gone. Lincoln's Marlborough is the first of NZ's 1999 sauvignons showing that longed for nettle, tomato plant leaf, sweatiness that didn't happen in most of the over-ripe 1998 Sauvignons. It also has intensely zingy passionfruit characteristics that permeate both aromas and fullish textures making Marlborough savvies so distinctive.
Acid levels are back on form and high enough to give a tart retort to the sweetly ripe fruit.
Yeah, Marlborough savvies are back again. Although this little baby was tasted just a month after harvest, it gives us a whiff of good old Marlborough 'armpit sweatiness' again and fresh, zingy gooseberry, passionfruit, grapefruit aromas. A full bodied palate carries ripe tropical flavors balanced by a grapefruit-like tartness. Whereas most of the 1998 Sauvignons were diffuse, flat, flabby and overly alcoholic, this suggests that 1999 has the potential to be a ripe vintage, but juicier and edgier than last year, with better acid structure and length. The wines won't be as good as 1997, but will at least be recognizably Marlborough in style.