Sauvignon Blanc

Shellfish, Vegetarian, Goat cheese

Greywacke is the Marlborough (New Zealand) label of Kevin Judd and the fulfilment of a long held dream. The name Greywacke was adopted by Kevin and his wife Kimberley for their first Marlborough vineyard located in Rapaura named in recognition of the high prevalence of rounded greywacke river stones in the soils of the vineyard. Kevin registered the name back in 1993 with the vague notion that he might one day want to use it on a wine label of his own.

Fruit was sourced from various prime vineyard sites in Marlborough’s Southern Valleys, the central Wairau Plains (specifically in Woodbourne, Renwick and Rapaura) and a spectacular river terrace site in the upper Awatere Valley. Soil types vary from the young alluvial soils of Rapaura, Renwick and the upper Awatere, which contain high proportions of New Zealand’s ubiquitous greywacke river stones, to the older and denser clay-loams of the Southern Valleys. The majority of the vineyards were trained using the divided Scott Henry canopy management system, with the balance on a two- or three-cane VSP (vertical shoot positioning) trellis.

All individual vineyard batches were left on lees and kept separate until late June, when the blend was assembled. The wine was bottled in mid-August.

Harvested largely by machine during cool (often cold) night-time conditions, the sauvignon blanc grapes were trucked to our winery in the Omaka Valley, where they were lightly pressed to yield a modest volume of high-quality juice. The juice was then cold-settled and racked prior to fermentation, primarily using cultured yeast in stainless steel for cool, slow fermentation. A portion of the juice was allowed to undergo spontaneous indigenous yeast fermentation in old oak barrels.