Oyster Bay Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2014: Pale lemon with hint of green color; tropical fruit, citrus, some passion fruit and grass on the nose;
lemon, lime, pink grapefruit, guava on the zesty palate; medium-light body, wonderfully cutting acidity, freshness, and minerality. This is the top selling sauv blanc in New Zealand and Australia and some 170,000 cases are imported to U.S. (making it the top selling New Zealand sauv blanc here). OB achieves remarkable quality for something made in such quantity. Oyster Bay is the label of the Delegat company, still entirely New Zealand owned. Delegat started in 1947 by Croatian émigrés Vidosava and Nikola Delegat, survived a major financial scare in the 1980s, and introduced the Oyster Bay brand in 1990 (after planting vineyards in 1988) to become among the first to take full advantage of the sauv blanc-Marlborough terroir boom. The name comes from Oyster Bay in Marlborough, on the tip of New Zealand’s South Island; the dramatic winery sits in the Wairau River valley. This is a very available, very food-friendly, very nice-for-price. $11-13
Oyster Bay website
Second photo: Oyster Bay’s dramatic winery.
