Southern Right Sauvignon Blanc 2014

Name: Southern Right Sauvignon Blanc 2014
Brand: Southern Right
SKU: 35675

Made reductively in order to maximize the fruit personality of the vintage, the 2014 shows more marked fruit aromatics than usual, while maintaining the typical Southern Right balance of Old World minerality and length with hints of New World palate coverage and body. 2014 is a wine that favours origin expressive individuality, minerality and palate complexity ahead of pure, pungent varietal aroma. A significant percentage of fruit from clay-rich soil has added an intense mid-palate structural component and addition overall complexity to this wine.

variety : Sauvignon Blanc [ 93% Sauvignon Blanc, 6% Semillon, 1% Chardonnay ]

winery : Southern Right

winemaker : Hannes Storm

wine of origin : Western Cape

analysis : alc : 12.82 % vol rs : 1.60 g/l pH : 3.04 ta : 7.40 g/l

type : White style : Dry body : Medium taste : Fruity

pack : Bottle size : 750ml closure : Cork

in the vineyard :

Soil Table Mountain Sandstone derived soil 46% Clay-rich shale derived soil 54%
Fruit Origin Hemel-en-Aarde Valley 50.3% Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley 12.2% Other Walker Bay 37.5%

H&A Valley (50.3%) - HRV 23%, SR 16%, Ashbourne 2.3%, Vrede 9%

Upper H&A Valley (12.2%) - Peter Sham 12.2%,

Walker Bay (37.5%) - Benguela Cove 36.5%, Sir Robert Stanford 1%

In general 2014 has been a challenging vintage, with warmth and Southeast drizzle in February creating ideal conditions for Botrytis (luckily - and with vigilance - well under control). This followed an unusually wet January with 1/5th of a years rainfall occurring over 3 days in what should be a fairly dry month. Nevertheless, every harvest presents its set of challenges - reminding us that agriculture is a form of gambling with nature - and we have a sufficiently long experience of working our terroir to pre-empt and control many of the risks. What we thought would be a particularly late harvest is very much in-line with 2013.

about the harvest: Yield: 40hl/ha, 5.8t/ha

in the cellar : Sauvignon blanc can suffer from a lack of complexity and at Southern Right we overcome this by assembling the wine from numerous components. We want to avoid higher alcohol and/or residual sugar as a means of achieving palate weight. We use grapes from up to 17 different parcels in the Walker Bay district and Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, from 5 different clones, picked at multiple ripeness levels, with the aim of the final blend coming in at just under 13% Alcohol. We use up to 5 different yeasts - some for aroma and some for texture - and we blend wines made from 2 very different soil structural classifications. Light structured sandstone-derived soils make up approximately 50% of the blend and contribute a nervous tension and lifted varietal character (more methoxypyrazines), while stony, extremely clay-rich shale-derived soils make up the other approximately 50% of the blend and contribute a fatter, richer character which fills out the mid-palate and provides structure (more Thiols).

Barrel Maturation: None | Production: 11 500 cases | Release Date: August 2014 | On fine lees for 3 Months

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