BABICH FAMILY ESTATE INDIVIDUAL VINEYARD
COWSLIP VALLEY SAUVIGNON BLANC 2009

Grapes: 
100% Sauvignon Blanc

Region:
Waihopai Valley, Marlborough

Winemaker: 
Adam Hazeldine

Recommended Food: 
Great with seafood or fish meals. Try with fresh oysters!

Recommended Cellaring:
Best enjoyed while young.

Production Notes:
Select parcels of fruit from the Cowslip Valley Vineyard in the Waihopai Valley were obtained to craft this vineyard specific wine. After harvest the fruit was quickly crushed and fermented in stainless steel tanks at cool temperatures to retain aromatics particular to this unique site. The individual parcels were accessed, blended and lightly fined before bottling.

Tasting Notes:
This wine displays a pungent musky nose, sweetly perfumed with passionfruit. The palate is mouth filling - guava, passionfruit, red capsicum and black current are nicely offset by lively acidity. Fruit lingers on the finish and the taster is visited by a haunting impression of gooseberry long after the glass is lowered.

Awards:
GOLD MEDAL
-Royal Easter Show Wine Awards, NZ, Feb 2010

SILVER MEDAL
-Air New Zealand Wine Awards, Nov 2009

SILVER MEDAL
-Vintage Cellars National Wine Show of Australia, Nov 2009

SILVER MEDAL
-International Wine Challenge, UK, 2010

SILVER MEDAL
-Liquorland Top 100, May 2010

Reviews:
"Slightly "sweaty armpit" aromas, leading into a weighty, rounded wine with ripe tropical-fruit flavours, showing excellent delicacy, texture and depth.  It's a very harmonious wine with fine acidity and lovely flow and richness."
4.5 STARS
-Michael Cooper's Wine Buyers guide to New Zealand Wines 2010

"Lifted, ‘sweaty armpit’ aromas lead into a weighty, concentrated wine with sweet-fruit delights and rich, tropical fruit flavours. One judge described the style as intense but “slightly cloying”, while another found it “powerful, but still elegant."
4.5 STARS
-Winestate Magazine, March/April 2010

"Intense, weighty Sauvignon Blanc with a "Southern Valley" style flavour profile of passion fruit, green capsicum, gooseberry and box/hedge. Pungent, complex wine showing real power."
5 STARS
Top 10 List, 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
-Bob Campbell, www.bobswinesreviews.com

"The nose is bursting with lime zest, passionfruit and capsicum characters. It's vibrant and saturated with ripe fruit notes, a lovely juicy mouth-feel and a tasty long finish. A great-looking Sauvignon with ample fruit and an energetic palate."
5 STARS
93 POINTS
-WineOrbit.co.nz, Sam Kim, March 2010

"Intense, weighty sauvignon blanc with "Southern Valley" style flavour profile of passionfruit, green capsicum, gooseberry and box hedge.  Pungent, complex wine showing real power."
5 STARS
95 POINTS
-Gourmet Traveller - Wine Magazine, Apr/May 2010