Crayères Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2021
Nettle, arugula, cucumber rind, white stone-fruit kernel. Deep, yet reserved, with subtle, gentle, ponginess. Has a luminous — no refractive — property about it. Incredible fruit intensity. As it is in the mouth also, with deep stone fruit of the just-ripe white nectarine kind, and serious textural foundations underlying the fruit. Which at present is still coiled up and latent, needing a little time to unwind. Complex mouth-aromas linger long. This is a serious white and will benefit from another 2-3 years in bottle.
Author: Tim White – http://www.timwhite.com.au/
Score: 94(96)/100 (e) – 9/10 (h)
NOTES:
“The 2019 Terre à Terre was my joint top-pointed South Australian white wine of the vintage; right up there with Shaw and Smith Lenswood Vineyard Chardonnay and Grosset Springvale Riesling. And a fraction above Pikes The Merle Riesling, Penfolds Bin A Chardonnay, Tapanappa Tiers 1.5m. Stunning, sublime wines all.
For this observer the Terre à Terre Sauvignon sits alongside Gembrook Hill Sauvignon and Domaine A Lady A as the three finest solo expressions of this cultivar in Australia. Three examples of when the grape variety just happens to be the conduit for unique single vineyard expressions of great white wine.
This gets the full 600 litre demi-muids-fermented treatment. The fruit is the final, ripest pick each vintage and is from the western section of the vineyard where the topsoil is shallow ‘terra-rossa’ over limestone. You’ll find extra detail here.
The vines are all a single clone planted in 2004 — but here’s a thing — vigneron Xavier Bizot tells me they don’t know whether it’s F4V6 or H5V10 (as discussed above). It’s always wonderful when encountering great wine that there remains some mystery.”
