Hans Herzog Sauvignon Blanc 2019

The small, family-run estate of Hans Herzog produces a bewildering array of idiosyncratic wines from a long list of varieties known and unknown, and the estate’s version of sauvignon is unsurprisingly a far cry from the Marlborough standard. It’s already quite deep gold-coloured, and shows a distinctive, non-sauvignon profile, very low on fruit and dominated by dried hay, old wood, pine bark and other resinous notes, herbal tea, dried flowers and a myriad of other intriguing scents. The palate is full-bodied, fleshy and highly extracted – this is no 15 ton per hectare crop here, but rather ultra low-yielding, dense and concentrated juice, saturated with flavour. Buyers may be shocked at the price, but it’s in a category of its own. The only misstep by the winery is to call this a Marlborough sauvignon; buyers of the mainstream commercial versions will be on totally unfamiliar ground. Fans of top quality whites, however, will want to try this. Drink or hold, who knows? A decade should not be a problem. Tasted May 2022. Score – 94. (John Szabo, MS, winealign.com)