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#354 Alinea Sauvignon Blanc 2021

TASTING NOTES

👃🏼 The vanguard is a lovely mix of gravel, peaches, nectarine, along with a hint of more tropical guava fruit roll.

👄 On the palate, we get what we think is a fairly full-lower toned wine – unexpected for a sauvignon blanc…but then, that slow attack citrus acidity starts to build and bloom. The end result is a vibrant cirtus juiciness layered over a very texture pithy mouthfeel, and these more serious imposing elements are brought into balance by sweeter peach fruit that we noticed on the nose.

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The Wild Wild West

The South African winelands has been undergoing a secret vinifical gold rush in recent years. Whether it is towards the east, on the Cape South Coast (where the rocky, limey, windswept tracts of land beckon for our most adventurous Chardonnay lovers) or up north on the fringes of South Africa’s West Coast (where the severe, sun-bleached, silica-rich, beach-sand vineyards harbour other-wordly Sauvignon vines) new frontiers are being explored by South Africa’s progressive winemaking explorers.

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More Lunatic Fringe!

On the West coast, in a little known ward called St Helena Bay (which currently only hosts two registered grape farmers), producers like Gedeelte Wines are engaging in some outlandishly ambitious viticulture and winemaking. Wimpie and John Bouwer of Gedeelte Wines farm the cultivar of Barbarossa – one of only four vineyards in the world – and are also producing some outlandishly ambitious Jura-inspired oxidative wines that deserve special mention.

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Sand, Salt and Sauvignon

But for now, in the minds of the broader wine community, it is their emerging Sauvignon wines that are making the broadest impact, as producers like Gedeelte and farmer Jasper Smit are also supply their Sauvignon Blanc grapes to award-winning producers like Alinea Wines and Neil Ellis, enabling the effect of St Helena Bay’s vineyard to reach far wider than their isolated geography would imply. Fans of the Neil Ellis West Coast Sauvigon, and more recently the award-winning Alinea Sauvignon will have already been enjoying the literal fruits of their labours; perhaps without even knowing it!

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If you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have to hunt this wine down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs:

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TECHNICAL SPECS

🔬 Wine of Origin St Helena Bay. 100% Sauvignon Blanc. The grapes were harvested in mid February and pressed as whole bunches. The juice was settled overnight, before it was racked into old french barrels for fermentation. No yeasts were added; only native/wild yeasts were involved in fermentation. Fermentation and ageing took place in ancient 600L French oak casks, and the wine was allowed to mature on its lees for six months.

| Alc 14.03% | Sugar 2.1g/L |Acid 7.1g/L | pH 3.27 |

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