Yealands Estate Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Do you remember your first “crush” – that special someone you met early in your life that you though you’d be with forever? I don’t think there’s a person that hasn’t had that “young and in love” experience. Most of those relationships don’t last but while we’re going through them, they are our whole world.

At the moment, I’ve found my first wine “crush” – Yealands Estate 2009 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is something special in my book. I picked it as my “over $10, under $20″ Sauvignon Blanc of the week. I’ve really come to enjoy New Zealand style SB’s and was really anticipating a zesty grapefruit/citrus smell and acidity to come through.

Swirling the wine in the glass, I got the zesty citrus notes, but also some very strong herbage/grassy-ness in there as well – unusual for it to be that strong on the nose. Tasting it was really an experience between expectations and reality. Lots of complexity - acidity, a slight, slight bit of sweetness, mineral notes (wet stones), limes/citrus, and grassy – all there and nearly all at the same time. Its probably the first SB I’ve tasted that felt balanced. Usually NZ style hits like a sledge hammer with acidity - this was more restrained and mellow. Also a first, there was a finish that I could still taste 5-7 minutes after drinking. I’ve not experienced that in a SB before.

The first words out of my mouth were “Wow, that’s good!”, followed by the pouring of another glass which was as good as the first. In this category the only other wine I’ve had that was close to this was the Rodney Strong SB. This one is in a slightly different class as a NZ style, but this is the better of the two wines.

Scoring this one in the 90′s is easy – 92 points for me, although I’m not sure what else they could do to make it better. This was a “crushingly” good wine – so much so that I’ll be keeping a few bottles on hand. At $11.99 on sale, it’s an easy choice to make.