Lawsons Dry Hills Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2025

Lawsons Dry Hills Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, South Island, New Zealand, 2025

Grape: 100% Sauvignon Blanc, certified sustainable, 65% Awatere Valley & 35% Wairau Valley fruit, 20+ year old vines, 5+ years' ageing potential, 4g/L residual sugar

Producer Tasting Note:

This wine is bursting with a complex array of aromatics including passionfruit, lime, green papaya, rock melon and honeysuckle. The palate is packed with intense flavours and a lovely weight and minerality. Crisp and dry on the finish.

Winemaking: 2025 was marked by good flowering and a dry, warm summer which meant we could harvest each parcel of grapes when they reached ideal ripeness and flavour. Each parcel of grapes was picked as it reached optimum ripeness with maximum passionfruit characters and while the acidity was still bright and crisp. The grapes were gently pressed before being fermented in stainless steel tanks with selected cultured yeast. We also fermented 10% with wild yeast (naturally present on the skins of the grapes) in old French barriques to give added complexity.

Critics' Tasting Notes:

"Driven, juicy and vivid, with limes, passion fruit and some fresh herbs on the nose. Medium-bodied with fresh acidity. Plenty of energy with a focused finish. Drink or hold. Screw cap."

91/100 points, James Suckling, March 2026

"An excellent bouquet with focus and concentration, spice and core of fruit purity. Aromas and flavours of ripe, sweet grapefruit, spice and cape gooseberry along with a core of complexity with layers of floral tones and mineral. A satin touch on the palate swings to power with the acid line and core fruit flavours remain persistent and pure. Delicious, fresh, balanced and well made with best drinking from 2025 through 2028+."

OUTSTANDING (95/100 points) Cameron Douglas MS, October 2025

"A powerful rendition, the enticing bouquet shows grapefruit, green rock melon, lime peel, and jasmine aromas with a hint of oatmeal. The concentrated palate offers outstanding weight and persistence, beautifully structured by pitch-perfect acidity, and finishes superbly long and engaging. At its best: now to 2032."

GOLD (96/100 points), New Zealand International Wine Show, 2025

Food Match: Fresh cheeses, herb or lemon flavours, seafood such as oysters, clams, mussels in tomato sauce, white fish, seafood pasta in tomato sauce, poached fish with herbs, herbed chicken, green vegetables, dill, parsley, chervil, basil, thyme, fennel, tarragon, lemongrass, chilli.