The Exception Sauvignon Blanc

Not every vintage is amenable to making great dessert wine. However, 2015 was the exception! The lovely, warm conditions of the vintage were ideal, and an unexpected parcel of late harvest Sauvignon Blanc was the perfect, ripe fruit to use for this Exception wine. 

The fruit for this wine was harvested from Block E, on our Billi’s vineyard at night on the 22nd of April 2015, with a yield of around six and a half tonnes per hectare. The fruit was crushed and the juice from the raisined berries was held on skins for six hours to liberate the sugar and extract intense fruit flavours from the pulp closest to the skin. We fermented this wine at 12˚C in stainless steel tanks to preserve the primary fruit flavour and chose a yeast strain called ES181 because of its ability to promote the expression of rich, fruity aromas. This wine was matured for nine months in 100% new French oak puncheons (500 litres) that were sourced from four different coopers. The puncheons themselves also vary in origin, which helps build the layers of complexity in the wine.