This was a wine I first tried (and loved) at the winery in Dec. 2001,
revisited at a dinner on a recent vacation:
Color: Deep golden yellow
Nose: iodine, grass, apricot
Palate: Initially, impressions of seaweed/iodine, giving way to
moderate grassiness and prominent flavors of melon and apricot and a
clean, lightly crisp finish. With braised scallops in a garlic/mushroom
sauce, the wine took on more overtly grassy flavors; with BBQ shrimp in
mild jerk seasonings, the fruit of the wine was prominent. [Both
food/wine matches received a 4 on the Hoare scale]

This wine is an atypical Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc -- barrel aged and
quite lean in its youth, it is built for age and is now showing
beautifully. Even my wife, who generally dislikes aged white wines,
found this wine to her liking. She in fact compared it to a white
Bordeaux, though I personally find it more akin to the Sauvignons of the
Loire Valley. In either case, this wine is highly recommended for
those who are looking for a NZ SB with more restraint and aging
potential.

Mark Lipton