Misty Cove Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2025

Misty Cove is a Marlborough estate in the Wairau Valley on New Zealand's South Island, founded by former cricketers Andrew Bailey and Jerrod Englefield, who farm 242 hectares of vineyard organically. Marlborough is the world's benchmark region for Sauvignon Blanc, and its cool maritime climate is the key to the style: long, sunny days and cold nights give a wide diurnal range that ripens the fruit while preserving very high natural acidity and the grape's aromatic compounds. The free-draining stony soils of the Wairau plain add to the wine's freshness and drive. It is fermented cool in stainless steel with no oak, a method that locks in primary fruit and the pungent, herbaceous aromatics for which the region is known rather than softening them. The absence of malolactic conversion keeps the sharp acidity intact and the wine crisp. It shows pale and green-tinged in the glass, with grapefruit, passionfruit, gooseberry and green capsicum over a cut-grass note. The palate is dry, zesty and sharply defined, the tropical and green fruit carried by racy acidity to a clean, lively finish. Serve well chilled at 8 to 10 degrees. It is a natural aperitif and a fine match for shellfish and fresh cheeses.