Ata Rangi Te Wa Sauvignon Blanc 2019

Reviews and Accolades

Critics about the Ata Rangi Te Wa Sauvignon Blanc 2019:

James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com): 94/100. This has an attractive and complex nose, offering really vivid ripe-peach, passion-fruit and lime-brulee aromas. The palate has impressively smooth texture and really fresh, deeply flavored peaches and mangoes abound. Delicious now.

Bob Campbell, MW: 94/100 & Top Rank. Bright, tangy yet pleasingly textural sauvignon blanc with nectarine, citrus-lemon, pineapple, wildflowers, spice and anise characters. A rich and quite complex wine with an impressively lengthy finish.

Sam Kim (Wine Orbit): 95/100. A stunning rendition of the variety offering brilliant fruit purity together with elegant complexity. It's delightfully lifted on the nose showing Granny Smith apple, jalapeno, fresh fig and lime peel aromas with a hint of oatmeal. The palate displays excellent weight and focus combined with fine texture and flowing mouthfeel, finishing impressively long and mouth-watering. At its best: now to 2026.

Christina Pickard, Wine Enthusiast: 91/100. From stony, alluvial gravels and partially fermented on skins and in barrels, this wine starts with a perfume of pineapple and guava, an underlay of green rind and lavender characters. As it warms, a more subtle, stony minerality floats to the fore. In the mouth it feels young and vibrant, with bright fruit, a slippery texture and rapier acidity. A round, pithy grapefruit finish closes things out. Still a baby, this should blossom in another few years and gain boatloads of complexity with time. Drink 2021-2030.

Cameron Douglas MS: 96/100 Complex, calm, softly spoken aromas of citrus peel and cape gooseberry, golden kiwi fruit and apple. As the wine opens up so too does the aroma package becoming more complex and louder with a soft sage and herb layer. Delicious, dry and textured on the palate with flavours of lemon and red apple, more cape gooseberry and white fleshed orchard fruits. Youthful, savoury, complex and lengthy. A wine to enjoy today and through 2025+.

Tasting Note

An exotically perfumed wine, with aromas of grapefruit, green apple, pineapple and mint. The palate compliments an intense nose, with flavours of ginger, lemon grass and cinnamon. The 2019 season with it lower yields and great balance of sugar and flavour intensity has resulted in a wine with real palate volume and a long lingering finish. The balance of acid, and phenolics from the skins will see this wine developing further over the next years.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: White wine

Varietal: Sauvignon Blanc

Alcohol: 12.5% vol

Style: dry

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulphites

Vineyard: Martinborough, New Zealand

Winemaking: 10% fermented on skin for 8 weeks, 5% fermented whole bunch for 4 weeks then gently pressing to remove skins. All other fruit pressed and fermented in barrel or tank. Barrel portion makes up 40% of the blend. No sulphur addition to juice, high solids and wild yeast fermentation. Some malolactic in barrel.

Cellaring potential: 2025

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled: Ata Rangi Vineyard, PO Box 43, Martinborough 5741, New Zealand