Dog Point Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2014
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Wine Enthusiast
Everything you’d ever want in a Sauvignon Blanc is here—and then some. Grassy, herbal, citrusy aromas set the pace, joined by some slightly feral, wooly pungency that adds even greater complexity. On the palate, it’s plump and mouthwatering without being excessively tart, and lingers gloriously on the finish. Editors' Choice
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Wine Spectator
A smooth, fleshy mix of honeysuckle, ripe melon, dried mango, peach and nectarine flavors, with a squirt of lemon juice. Succulent and complex, offering a whiff of smoky tea and celery leaf notes on the finish. Drink now.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
From start to finish, the 2012 Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc exhibits the best elements of this varietal. Not just herbs, but ripe melon and citrus elements come to the party. This would be a great match with grilled rosemary-laced pork chops as well as the usual oysters on the half shell. Medium straw color; appealing tangy mineral citrus aroma, medium depth; medium bodied, zippy, yet textured on the palate; delicious lemon peel flavors; long finish, lively aftertaste. Drinking well now. (Tasted: October 8, 2015, Renwick, New Zealand)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Sauvignon Blanc opens with an incredible intensity of zingy lemon and gooseberry scents with nuances of flint, baker’s yeast and gravel. Medium-bodied with lovely texture, oodles of citrus and stony flavors and a racy acid line, it finishes with fantastic length.
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Almost since its inception, Dog Point has been recognized as among the very top (arguably the very top) wine producers in New Zealand. Their two very different Sauvignon Blancs, their Pinot Noir and their Chardonnay are all wines of astounding quality and complexity not just in the context of New Zealand wines, but globally. Their wines are hand-crafted from estate fruit grown on some of the oldest vines and best sites in Marlborough, some plantings dating back to the 1970s. These older well-established vines situated on free draining silty clay loams are supplemented with fruit from closely planted hillside vines. Yields are low, and the grapes are hand-harvested. That’s our attempt at an understated New Zealand statement: few hand-pick fruit in New Zealand (95% is machine-harvested), and Dog Point’s Sauvignon Blanc yields, for example, are 50% below the average for the region.
Dog Point’s focus on pruning, soil health through organic farming, use of native yeasts and for one wine selected neutral commercial yeasts, all point to a quality and detail-obsessed producer intimately familiar with its region. Dog Point is in fact the result of a collaboration between two Cloudy Bay alumni, enologist James Healy and founding viticulturalist Ivan Sutherland. Both left Cloudy Bay at the end of 2003, and the first vintage of Dog Point released was the 2002 vintage.
The winemaking is non-interventionist, and all the wines (with the exception of the stainless steel Sauvignon Blanc) are given extended barrel aging with minimal racking and handling. Bottling is done without fining and with minimal filtration. The resulting wines are intense, complex, with racy natural acidity and ripe, full fruit flavors.
The name Dog Point dates from the earliest European settlement of Marlborough and the introduction of sheep to the district. These were the days of few fences, of boundary riders and boundary-keeping dogs. Shepherds’ dogs sometimes became lost or wandered off and eventually bred into a wild pack. Their home was a tussock and scrub covered hill, overlooking the Wairau Plains, designated by the early settlers as Dog Point.