Te Mata Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc 2024

Reviews

Erin Larkin, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: 95/100. It is a powerful wine that is layered with texture, spice and toast yet shaped by precision rather than weight alone. .... On the nose, the wine offers white chocolate, quinine, lime zest, white flowers, jasmine, fennel and aniseed. The palate is expansive yet controlled, with a saline, mouthwatering line of acidity that carries long through the finish. .... This marks the second year of the estate’s new-barrel program, with 35% second-use oak and the balance third- and fourth-fill barrels. The result is a wine of authority and detail: it is concentrated, architectural and deeply satisfying. This is excellent.

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front, September 2023: 97/100. This is 86% Sauvignon Blanc, 9% Semillon, and 5% Sauvignon Gris with about 32% new oak. These wines age very well, as evidenced by a recent vertical tasting HERE. Juicy gooseberry, guava and pink grapefruit, a herbal edge lends a slight thistle grassiness, floral notes, light spice. It’s lively, great texture here, some chalky things, a little gloss, blackcurrant, ripe grapefruit acid with a spicy finish of excellent length, and I like that light grip on exit. This is yet another very good release. Drink : 2026 - 2036+

James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com): 94/100. Aromas of jasmine, Meyer lemons, green melon and lavender. So fresh and rather delicate. Medium-bodied with crunchy fruit and tangy acidity. Crisp and vivid. 86% sauvignon blanc, 9% semillion and 5% sauvignon gris. Drink or hold.

Cameron Douglas MS: 94/100.  Immediate power and intensity, more pronounced barrel ferment complexities, a definitive core of pineapple, ripe citrus and fleshy peach ideas.  A backbone of acidity, saline and salivating, bright and fresh. A perfect balance of fruit and structure. Delicious and ready. Best drinking from day of purchase through 2030.

Tasting Note:

White diamond at its core with flickering lemon lights, Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc 2024 opens with expressive grapefruit, lime blossom, and white currant, lifted by hints of guava and warm citrus brioche. Fine and long, the palate surges with layers of nectarine, lemon oil, and ripe tropical fruit threaded with notes of sea salt, flint, and subtle toasted cedar. Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc 2024 is layered, seamless, and beautifully focused with striking clarity and drive, delivering signature ripeness and complexity alongside a refreshing, long and mineral-edged finish.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: White wine

Varietals: 86% Sauvignon Blanc, 9% Sémillon, 5% Sauvignon Gris.

Winemaking: The separate parcels were each destemmed and lightly crushed, then cooled before a brief period of skin contact. Following pressing and cold-settling, they were all run to a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation and maturation, with 36% being new oak. The resulting wines were aged on lees, with regular stirring, for a further 11 months before bottling in February 2025.

The name: Cape Crest and its gannet symbol refer to Cape Kidnappers, the southern point of Hawke Bay, home to the world’s largest mainland colony of these remarkable marine birds.

Alcohol: 13.5% vol

Wine style: dry

Total acidity: 6.9 g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: Contains sulphites, milk.

Cellaring potential: 2034

Closure: screwcap

Ingredients: Grapes, sucrose, acidity regulators (calcium carbonate), antioxidants (potassium metabisulphite (sulphites))

Produced and bottled by: Te Mata Estate, PO Box 8335, Havelock North, Hawkes Bay 4157, New Zealand

Distributor: vinabonus GmbH, Simmedenweg 40, 34134 Kassel, Germany.

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