BABICH MARLBOROUGH RIESLING 2007
Grapes:
100% Riesling
Region:
Waihopai (60%) and Wairau (40%) Valleys, Marlborough
Winemaker:
Adam Hazeldine
Recommended Food:
An excellent partner to a wide range of foods, ideal with Asian dishes, or try it with mussel and kumara patties, drizzled with home-made lime-spiked mayonnaise.
Recommended Cellaring:
0-6 years
Production Notes:
Grapes were harvested at low Brix in late April. The juice was fermented in stainless steel tanks to retain aromatic varietal character, with various different yeasts and at different temperatures. The ferments were stopped before completion to retain a level of natural sweetness. The young wine was left on its yeast lees until blending.
Tasting Notes:
The bouquet is a fine blend of floral and herbal notes with a healthy dose mineral and red apple. Very lifted. The palate is lively and crisp with a lush mid palate mirroring the nose with its floral and citrus notes added to that is some granny smith apple. This wine has great balance and presence and a lingering dry finish.
Awards:
SILVER MEDAL
-International Wines and Spirits Competition, UK, 2009
SILVER MEDAL
-New World Wine Awards, 2008 and 2009
SILVER MEDAL
-Air New Zealand Wine Awards, Nov 2008
SILVER MEDAL
90 POINTS
- Best of Riesling 2008, Germany July 2008
Reviews:
"A dry, pleasantly flavoured Riesling with grapefruit, lemon and apple flavours in good depth and concentration. A fullish style with really good phenolics on the finish."
-WineNZ Magazine, Spring 2008
"The 2007 is still youthful, with fresh, pure citrusy, appley flavours, crisp, slightly sweet and balanced for easy drinking."
-Michael Cooper's Buyers Guide to New Zealand Wine 2009
"Fleshy, ripe style with citrusy, slightly toasty flavours, showing balanced acidity and a touch of development. Mouthfilling and dryish, offering very satisfying drinking now onwards."
4.5 STARS
-Winestate Magazine, 2009
"Lanolin, fresh apples, citrus and the beginnings of toastiness are presented with finesse by the experienced team at Babich. An excellent food wine; try it with juicy pork and crackling. Dry."
4 STARS
-Cuisine Magazine, March 2009
"Wonderful lime and mineral aromas succumb to herbal lemony characteristics in the palate joined to a tart acidity. Dry with bold alcohol."
-TiZwine.com, May 2009
"The nose is pure Riesling displaying lime zest, floral and mineral characters. There's subtle sweetness on the palate with lemony acidity providing excellent freshness and zing. A beautifully structured and elegant Riesling with a lovely long finish."
4 STARS
-Wine Orbit, July 2009
"Lemongreen. The Babichs have long had a feel for the riesling style, one I have followed since ordering their inaugural 1970 Riesling-Sylvaner direct from the winery. [ Which incidentally raises the issue, it is a great pity nobody is taking the understated but at best demurely beautiful muller-thurgau seriously in New Zealand any more. In its subtlety and delicate flavours, this Babich Riesling reminds us that we could make a world-beating example of muller-thurgau as well in New Zealand, particularly given modern knowledge and practice in the vineyard, with consequent increases in wine depth and flavour. ] Back to the riesling. This wine has all the floral delicacy of fine Mosel too, with a softness to the subtle limezest terpenes which, given the dry finish, is exemplary. If you have been disappointed by too many German riesling trockens and halbtrockens, try this New Zealand wine – a revelation. Being ‘dry’, it compares with the subtlest Eden and Clare Valley rieslings too, but is subtler again (though not as dry). Cellar 3 – 10 years."
5 STARS
-www.geoffkellywinereviews.co.nz
"Lemony and slightly toasty bouquet, with some development evident, and a crisp, dry palate, showing good depth."
-Winestate Magazine, March/April 2010
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