SHEILD Sauvignon Blanc 2023

Reviews

James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com): 93/100. Flinty, showing sliced-pear undertones and flowers on the nose. Medium body, crisp and minerally with a long finish. A lovely Loire-inspired sauvignon blanc. Drink now.

Cameron Douglas MS: 93+/100 (Excellent). A delicious expression with aromas and flavours of cape gooseberry and tropical fruits then lemonade lemons and fresh herb qualities. The backbone of acidity ensures ageing and crispness, mouthfeel and salinity. Additional flavours of apple and seagrass, hay and white flowers build complexity across the palate. The alcohol adds weight alongside the fruit, and there’s a fine mineral white clay quality with a touch of lees complexity. Well made, dry on the finish and ready to drink from day of purchase through 2027.

Sam Kim, Wine Orbit: 93/100. This is immediately appealing on the nose with Granny Smith apple, nectarine, feijoa and green tea aromas, leading to a delightfully flavoursome palate that's juicy and lively. Varietally expressive and delectably appealing. At its best: now to 2026.

Tasting note

Star bright and pale lemon-green in colour with a pronounced nose of passionfruit, citrus, apple and pineapple. A powerful fruit driven wine displaying only light secondary aromas. Medium bodied with layers of flavour, the palate core is fruit dense with mineral nuances. Its presence builds and lingers for a long persistent finish that is dry and clean.

Varietal: Sauvignon Blanc

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Food match: Sauvignon Blanc's 'zing' is a delightful complement to dishes with fresh herbs, green vegetables, seafood or fresh goats cheese. Enhance the effect with a citrus or garlic garnish. Or simply enjoy as a refreshing aperitif.

Vineyard: Appleby, Nelson, New Zealand. Flat alluvial soils, gravel with a layer of silt loam.

Vine Age: 14-20 years.

Vintage 2023: Winter 2022 was not especially cold as local sea temperatures remained warmish and influenced the land. Precipitation on the other hand was frequent, and sometimes heavy. Budburst was again early as we have become accustomed to with the La Nina dominant weather umbrella. Spring growth was also vigorous with water at field capacity in the soils, and warmer temperatures. The energetic spring conditions proved challenging for flowering and fruitset resulting in variability within varieties and across regional sites. Periodic rain events continued through summer and the vineyard vigor continued as well. Temperatures remained warm so fruit development was not retarded. Fingers were crossed from verasion and with a large amount of luck the rain held off and fruit was allowed to ripen and be harvested. Picking started early March with the Rose and was completed in a relatively short four week period. Grapes were once again clean and ripe.

Regional climate: Nelson’s sheltered topography gives protection from strong winds; combined with its proximity to the sea this gives milder temperatures than other South Island regions, mitigating frost risk. Regularly New Zealand’s sunniest region and with good diurnal variation this helps emphasise varietal character. High sunlight hours and a long growing season give wonderful fruit purity.

Winemaking: Sourced from a single vineyard off the Waimea Plains, three separate picks were machine harvested over a fortnight for this wine. Different parcels enabling Trudy Sheild to ‘play’ with three different juices and create a spectrum of flavours to work with at blending time. But back to harvest… Trudy Sheild has found machining to be the best technique for harvesting many of the aromatic white varieties and most definitely Sauvignon Blanc. Trudy and the team like to start early, preferably before dawn, removing the fruit quickly while the temperature is cool to minimise oxidation and preserve aromatics. Grape-skin contact with the juice during transportation and processing at the winery contributing to the concentration of flavour and the phenolic structure obtained in the juice. The winemaker Trudy uses a quick but gentle press cycle to de-juice the fruit. The juices are then cold settled for several days to achieve low solids prior to ferment promoting crisper and more pure varietal aromatics. Each parcel of juice may be split into more than one ferment tank and are inoculated with different Sauvignon yeast chosen for the attributes they will bring to the finished wine. The ferments are conducted slowly at cool temperatures again to preserve aromatics. When only a dash of sugar remains and the wines are deemed balanced, the ferments are arrested by chilling. A small volume of wine that is destined for the final blend undergoes stirring on lees to enhance texture and mouthfeel. This creates a powerful blending component and an important brush stoke to our wine style. In early July, this year Trudy set about grading the individual wines and trailing and trailing and trailing again, potential blends! Seeking a good nose, concentration of the mid palate, length and overall balance. Once confident that these criteria were met the wine was blended and briskly finished for bottling mid September 2023.

Alcohol: 12.5% vol

Residual sugar: 5 g/l

TA: 7.75 g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulphites

Cellaring potential: 2026+

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled by: Drinks Cabinet Limited, Atawhai, Nelson 7010, New Zealand

Imported by: vinabonus GmbH, Simmedenweg 40, 34134 Kassel, Germany

Can't get enough of Sauvignon Blanc? Here is our Sauvignon Blanc assortment.