Wairau Valley Original · Zesty White Wine
Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Karinl / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
The vines that made the region famous were something of an afterthought — after early plantings of other varieties struggled with Marlborough's cool nights and dry summers, parcels were replanted with Sauvignon Blanc, which turned out to love the conditions.
Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, intensely aromatic white wine with sharp notes of passionfruit and cut grass, grown on the free-draining stony soils of the Wairau Valley. Cellar doors and wine-trail stalls across Marlborough pour it by the glass alongside greenshell mussels, its natural local pairing.
Why it's made this way: Commercial planting began in Marlborough in 1973, and within a decade the region's Sauvignon Blanc had won gold medals and reached UK shelves, turning what had been an untested cool-climate gamble into New Zealand's single largest wine region by volume.
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