KENZIE LITTLE DREAMER 2024

Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"My first major job in the wine industry was for a large corporate. I mentioned to the winemakers how it would be interesting to try some skin contact and barrel fermentation on our Sauvignon blanc. I was laughed out of the room. As a junior winemaker I felt a little despondent, but I’ve always lent towards the creative, artistic side of wine, constantly dreaming about style and texture. So, I held onto these thoughts and ideas, morphing them with experience and time. Coming back to Te Matau a Māui gave me the opportunity to work with New Zealand Sauvignon again, so I had to play around with these techniques to make a complex yet pure wine.

Green apple, chamomile, pink grapefruit and lime zest are followed by flint and mineral like flavours. A pure, crystalline and textural palate, the barrel ferment has added great complexity and length. This wine is dry and crisp with a crunchy, popping acid line.

Sauvignon – 100%. Fruit was harvested into bins in the cool of the morning and immediately destemmed. 90% of the fruit stayed here for 18 hours to develop texture and phenolic from the skin contact, before being pressed off to tank for settling. The following day, the juice was racked directly to three old French oak puncheons (500L). Wild fermentation kicked off and progressed at warm temperatures for approximately 14 days. 10% of the remaining fruit was fermented on skins for 18 days and used for topping. For the next six weeks lees stirring was conducted every week to develop mid palate weight and texture. It was then allowed to mature and settle at low temperatures for the next 2 months. The barrels were then racked and blended to finish ageing in tank together. Minimal sulphur was added a month before bottling."

93/100 Stephen Wong MW, The Real Review, December 2025 (2024 Vintage)
"100% organic sauvignon blanc from the limestone-rich Raukawa Hills, south of the Heretaunga Plains, the Little Dreamer is Dave Mackintosh’s new-wave take on the variety. 90% of the fruit remained on skins for 18 hours before wild fermenting in old oak puncheons, while the remaining 10% fermented on skins for 18 days, giving just that added texture and complexity without turning it into an amber wine. Fantastic food wine.

Intriguing notes of earth, smoke, dried herbs and spice with grapefruit and melon flavours, arrayed over noticeably chalky phenolics from skin fermentation, this has amber-wine structure with a clean, vetiver and tealeaf savouriness before finishing dry and mineral. Refreshing rather than oxidative in style, this low-intervention macerated white is food-friendly and will unfold in the mid-term."