Selected for the Fine Wines of New Zealand List
The Saint Clair ‘Wairau Reserve’ Sauvignon Blanc is Saint Clair’s flagship wine and is long considered one of the very best Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs. There's no doubting the Saint Clair style here, it's pungent and intense, oh so generous in aroma and flavour yet it has a refinement, an elegance from the slightly saline mineral characters that help drive the incredible length.
Winery notes (2022 Vintage)
"Opulent and expressive with concentrated aromas of white currant and passionfruit with an interlaced green thread. Pure and focused with complex layers of bright citrus and tropical fruit. The palate is textural and rich with salty mineral notes and a long lingering finish."
Rated Super Classic & 5 Stars Michael Cooper, August 2023 (2022 Vintage)
"Marlborough's largest family-owned wine producer has an extensive array of Sauvignon Blancs. This is not the region's most complex Savvy, but in terms of sheer pungency, it's a star, having won countless gold medals and trophies since the first, 2001 vintage. Grown in the cooler, coastal end of the Wairau Valley and handled entirely in stainless steel tanks, it is typically super-charged, in an exuberantly fruity, very pure and zesty style. The 2022 vintage was grown at three sites at Dillons Point. Bright, light lemon/green, it is a medium to full-bodied, very fresh and vibrant wine, with pure, penetrating, passionfruit and green capsicum flavours, showing excellent delicacy, and an appetisingly crisp, dry (3 grams/litre of residual sugar), lingering finish."
Reviews for the 2021 vintage below…
Rated Outstanding & 95/100 Cameron Douglas MS, November 2021 (2021 Vintage)
"Fantastic bouquet with a vibrant, varietal, fruity and with fresh herbs and spices delivers a powerful and enticing promise. On the palate – equally vibrant and delicious with flavours of sweet meyer lemon and white peach, fresh herbs and fruit spices. Acidity adds a quiver of energy leading to a salty enticing mouthfeel. Excellent drinking from 2021 through end of summer 2024."
5 Stars & 95/100 Bob Campbell MW, The Real Review, September 2021 (2021 Vintage)
"Is this New Zealand's most decorated sauvignon blanc label? Power and purity with punchy passionfruit, gooseberry, capsicum and lemongrass flavours. A delicious wine with a mouth-watering sweet-and-sour balance and an ethereal texture."
4 ½ Stars Yvonne Lorkin, April 2022 (2021 Vintage)
"One of New Zealand’s most highly awarded sauvignon’s, the Wairau Reserve represents the epitome of what the folks at Saint Clair can achieve with the smorgasbord of sauvignon blanc sites at their disposal. Scented with lemongrass, lime zest, a lick of jalapeno and a kick of red capsicum, it boasts herbaceous, citrussy layers of flavour in the mid-palate and washes bracingly clean along the finish."
4 Stars Cuisine Sauvignon Blanc Tasting, December 2021 (2021 Vintage)
"Tropical passionfruit and grapefruit, woven with crushed herbs with a touch of lifted ester on the nose bring you through to a rich, ripe palate of luscious flavours which congregate around the mid palate. The subtle yet deft acid serves to hold the power of the fruit intensity from overwhelming and brings the wine back into perfect balance."