Awards and Accolades

2014 Vintage:

Sydney International Wine Competition:
Judges' Comments:
Ken Dobler - A lovely complex nose with a mix of minerality and dried herb aromas. The palate showing pleasing weight of very precise clean fruit. This more savoury style accentuated the flavours in the food.

Stuart Halliday - Expressive varietal nose. A wine of flavour. Lovely asparagus and green pea. Juicy crunchy acid. The dish is extremely complementary. The wine sings and doesn’t lose anything. A harmonious blend there.

Cameron Douglas - Fruity juicy lush palate wine with ripe acidity. Refreshing. Crisp finish and great length. With the food a solid pairing overall. The wine remains powerful.

Bryan Currie - Pale colour. Green bean and smoky notes. A clean crisp palate. Combines well with the asparagus.

Mark Robertson - Green light and mineral with spicy nose. Very grassy and lifted. It has a light palate. It’s dancing. It has impressive acid. Perhaps a little lean but with food it’s lengthy still. The acid fruit holds this wine up and it’s all good.

Neil Hadley - This wine shows a somewhat string bean character on the nose with hints of green mango. The palate has a firmness to it that is somewhat offset by a creamy backdrop but the wine is not convincing and even less so with food.

2013 Vintage:

Blue Gold - Sydney International Wine Competition (2013)
3 Stars - Cuisine tasting November (2013)
Pure Bronze - Air New Zealand Wine Awards (2013)
Bronze - Avenues International Aromatic Wine Competition (2013)
Bronze - Spiegelau International Wine Competition (2013)
Bronze - The Marlborough Wine Show (2013)
Bronze - NZ International Wine Show (2013)

From the Winery

Late spring/summer was a period of overcast, dark days with cool temperatures. The Growing Degree Days (GDD) was looking like being the lowest on record. This caused a poor flowering and fruit set resulting in low crops levels. The fruit had very good flavours and bright acidity. There was very little
disease pressure or frosts and the low yielding crops were harvested very late in the season. We picked some fruit in May where as we normally have finished by ANZAC day.

At Hunter’s we try to preserve all the fresh characters we taste in the vineyard. We think it is essential to study all the fruit very carefully before making that major decision on when to pick – we only get one attempt each year. We pick in the cool of the morning and process the fruit using anaerobic techniques.

The cool fruit is de-stemmed, crushed and lightly pressed. We take the greatest of care to handle the fruit as little as possible during these processes thereby retaining maximum fruit character and aromas. The juice is clarified by cold settling, after which it is racked and then fermented for approximately 28 days. We ferment fruit from each vineyard separately in individual stainless steel tanks. Then we draw on each of these different components to blend Hunter’s own complex style of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Blue-Gold - Sydney International Wine Competition (2013)

Classically styled and characteristic of Hunter’s trademark Sauvignon Blanc, this wine shows a mixture of citrus, capsicum and ripe tropical fruit aromas. These aromas carry on to the palate which is crisp, multi layered and has a lingering finish making it an all-round satisfying wine.