Wine of the Week: Hay-Maker Sauvignon Blanc

Wine: Hay-Maker sauvignon blanc

Grape: Sauvignon blanc

Region: Marlborough, South Island, New Zealand

Vintage: 2014

Price: $6.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor

In the glass: Hay-Maker sauvignon blanc wine shows a faint lemon-yellow color with bright greenish streaks, a fine clean clear translucent appearance at the core with glass-clear rim definition and medium viscosity.

On the nose: This fragrant wine has concentrated notes of northern gooseberries, crushed white peaches, pomelo flesh, chalky minerals, fresh lime rind, Key lime pie, Granny Smith apples and some gardenia floral character.

On the palate: The wine is crisp with crushed gooseberry, white currants, fresh citrus zest and soft white fruit that perfectly balances the fresh acidity, making this a highly drinkable and approachable sauvignon blanc from the finest area for the grape varietal in the New World. The midpalate goes into the finish seamlessly and the wine appears to have really soft balanced harmony between the fruit and the acidity.

Odds and ends: I have often extolled the great sauvignon blancs from the northernmost appellation on the South Island of New Zealand: Marlborough County. The white wines from here are special and distinctly New World.

They are usually easy to recognize in blind tastings, brimming with classic gooseberry and what are oenologically known as mercaptans, or methanethiols, harmless but pungent-smelling gases. (Wine geeks compare this scent to a cat litter box.)

Mercaptans are a defining character of this particular grape variety grown in the Southern Hemisphere.

This wine should be drunk chilled to 52 degrees Fahrenheit and would be an excellent match for oysters on the shell. Drink it now through 2016.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.