On The Quiet Sauvignon Blanc

"Made 'On The Quiet', the bright, light lemon/green 2022 vintage (*****) is a single-vineyard wine, grown 24 kilometres inland in the Awatere Valley, and barrel-fermented. Retasted in late 2024, it is a highly characterful, mouthfilling, sweet-fruited wine, generous, savoury and complex, with layers of flavour and a rounded finish. It's drinking well now."

"Immensely complex and enticing, the wine shows green rockmelon, crunchy apple, dried grass, and almond meal characters. The palate is equally satisfying with excellent concentration and weight, wonderfully complemented by fleshy texture and beautifully pitched acidity, finishing wonderfully long and engaging."

"Jules Taylor’s OTQ range started life when Jules decided to keep a particularly good parcel of Sauvignon Blanc in an old barrel at the back of the cellar ‘on the quiet’. She didn’t even tell her husband and business partner Georges, until the wine was ready. But the risk paid off and the OTQ wines, of which there are now two, are single-vineyard bottlings made in the best vintages. There’s currently a Pinot Noir and this recently released 2023 Sauvignon from Awatere in the range. The Altimarloch vineyard is in the Upper Awatere and it’s a site that gives fruit with a particularly intense and varied flavour profile. Whole cluster pressing and wild fermentation in old barriques, followed by partial malolactic and occasional lees stirring, has yielded an unashamedly hedonistic take on Sauvignon, deeply coloured and creamy on the nose with savoury, glazed-nut intensity in the mouth and a long saline finish."

"Passion-fruit curd, fresh pineapple and lemon peel on the nose. The textured palate has a creamy mouthfeel and bright acidity with a generous power. Drink now. Screw cap."

"Good concentration, ripe flavours, some oak spice and richer, buttery flavours on the palate. Rounded tannins with woody flavours emerging late. This is about the structure more than the fruit with the oak tannins forming the main backbone. Expect it to bloom soon."

"Attractive lemon butter and beeswax on top of some deep, broad herbal tones. The palate has a lovely lemony vein. Long."

"Aromas and flavours of complexity and power, a distinctive wine with a combination of texture and depth. Fruit flavours range from apple to cape gooseberry, fresh white peach and minerality, through to fine lees and subtle soil-smoke qualities. A dry wine with medium weight and a satin texture, plenty of acidity and very fine fruit tannins adding an extra layer of mouthfeel. Delicious and ready to drink from day of purchase through 2028+."

"Wonderfully composed and expressed with complexity, showing apricot, grapefruit, oatmeal and lemon peel aromas, leading to an impressively weighted palate that's vibrant and persistent. The wine offers saline texture combined with beautifully pitched acidity, making it mouth-watering and highly enjoyable. At its best: now to 2032."

"Made 'On The Quiet', the bright, light lemon/green 2022 vintage (4.5*) is a youthful, vibrant, single-vineyard wine, grown in the Awatere Valley and barrel-fermented. Still unfolding, it is mouthfilling, with concentrated, ripe, tropical fruit flavours, yeasty, savoury notes adding complexity, and a dry, lingering finish. Best drinking mid-2024+. The finely textured 2021 vintage (5*) was grown in the Holdaway Vineyard, at Dillons Point, hand-picked, fermented in old oak barriques, and given a full, softening malolactic fermentation. Showing strong personality, it is fleshy and rich, with deep, ripe, tropical fruit flavours, gently seasoned with oak, and a long, well-rounded finish. Delicious drinking now onwards."

"Richly textured sauvignon with pineapple, guava, ginger, melon and toasted nut flavours. Quite concentrated and complex wine supported by mouthwatering acidity and fine, peppery tannins."

"The 2022 OTQ Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc is from the Altimarloch vineyard, and it is quite unusual in the context of other New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs I have tasted. Here, the acidity feels softer, the fruit profile less tropical (although no less intense) and the phenolics both pronounced yet soft. This is fresh and unusual, with a white chocolate and caramel character through the finish."