A few years ago now, I said some unkind words about Sauvignon Blanc. In my defence, it was said when the market was flooded with cheap and nasty ‘stuff’. Around that time, my exposure to the variety would have been fairly broad but it seems, sadly, the not-so-good experiences clouded my ongoing view.
Thankfully, in fairly recent times, I have been lucky enough to try some Sauvignon Blancs from Australia and New Zealand. What I am more than happy to admit is, I’m quite enjoying some of them. You could probably say that my initial comments have come back to bite me on the backside. This one, crafted by Ray Costanzo, is one that I rate up there with one of a small group of Sauvignon Blancs I would drink again.
A lovely aromatic wine with tropical fruits and snow pea like characters showing through. The palate is fresh, juicy, flavoursome and textural where those tropical fruit flavours (mainly passionfruit) shine along with delicate herbs, fine acidity providing some nice structure and a pretty good length. Considering the vines are 30 years old, I feel the last four lines don’t seem to do it justice. There is a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ about this wine that really impressed my wife and I.
Region: Granite Belt, Queensland Price: $35 Source: Sample thanks heaps to Golden Grove Estate (Ray Costanzo)
Words from a Wine Glass 
Bad SB is like cat’s piss. This sounds more like SB should be!
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Agree. This one has been made using partial oak fermentation.
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Not wanting to advertise Marlborough SB, but Cloudy Bay’s barrel fermented SB is a bit of a benchmark.
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Yes, definitely. Fairly old vines too if my memory serves me correctly.
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