Deep Down Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2021

An English wine writer famously once described Marlborough sauvignon blanc as tasting like ‘a bungee jump into a gooseberry bush.’ The evocative mental picture came back to me when I jumped into the 2021 Deep Down Marlborough sauvignon blanc. It immediately recalled the original style that first put Marlborough sauvignon blanc on the winemaking map, one of utter over-the-top, sing-out-loud herbaceousness. It’s all right here: sweet grassy fragrance, asparagus, lemongrass, dill, snow pea and, yes, gooseberry. A well-made, vibrant and super fresh sauvignon. In keeping with the New Zealand taste for a touch of sugar in their white wines, a thread of sweetness runs through the wine, bringing with it a gentle softening of the region’s rather brisk cool climate acidity, not to mention, über-herbaceousness. A good example of the classic style of Marlborough sauvignon.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic