2023 Vintage | 100% Sauvignon Blanc - Certified Sustainable
A 50:50 split of Wairau Valley and Awatere Valley fruit. Very solid, clean, ripe fruit requiring the lightest of touches in the winery. Wonderful, lifted, bright lime and passionfruit, with a light spicy character and a deep, tropical element all wrapped in a blanket of an almost creamy richness with a smoky passionfruit note.
Vintage Notes:
As spring goes, it didn't really get any better than this growing season. Plenty of rain came at the right time to get the vines up and going and produce magnificent canopies. It was one of, if not the best springs for growth that were seen in the winery's twenty years in Marlborough. The coastal site meant that, once again, the vines were untroubled by frost. Heading Into summer, the weather continued perfectly and allowed for very solid flowering and post-flowering periods, resulting In great set and bunch architecture. The challenges came later into the usually calm, stable late summer. February was, in a word, wet, with six times the monthly average of rain, with further rain falls in mid-March. The district was nervous, but at Barker’s Marque we were able to get a normal harvest and good, clean, ripe fruit was delivered to the crush pad.