Quality NZ Sauv Blanc-Babich Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2025

SPEAKER_00

0:01

Hey Domain Dave here, cheapwinefinder.com again with another value priced wine review. It's getting a little harder to find new wines, and this isn't exactly a new wine at all. I think we did the 2019 vintage of it. And this is a wine I went to Trader Joe's in hope that there might be a new Trader Joe's wine, and yeah, there wasn't. Uh but I got a Babbage Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2025. And that's not a bad thing because Babbage is still family-owned, and they uh started in 1906. They're one of the first big wineries in New Zealand. And one of the good things about that is they got to pick out the areas where their vineyards are before everybody else did. I mean, so they're good vineyards are in certain locations. Now, um, New Zealand has a lot of uh uh valleys and bays and all that kind of stuff where they really do grow good Sauvignon Blanc, but they got there first, and that does mean something. So also Babbage also has 120 years of knowing their vines, that's pretty good, and 120 years of making wine, that's pretty good too. So that gives them, you know, most of New Zealand's um wines are like this century. I mean, some of them go into the 1990s, but most of them are fairly new. So having an old hand who has been successful for 120 years is fine. I think I got it for$12.99, which is around a buck or two, one way or the other. What this wine sells for everywhere. I'm gonna take a sip and we'll talk about how it's made. Savion Blanc is kind of like the food, the like restaurant equivalent of you know farm to your table. They grow the grapes, they um I think they machine uh harvested them too. They're getting pretty good with the machine harvest. Used to be all hand harvest, it's getting hard to do that nowadays. But they uh take the grapes, ferment them. With um one of the nice things they told they said it's the MS clone. I mean, grapes are like roses, there's a thousand different grow different clones of the grapes. And MS is a uh one that came originally from California and it's really healthy, and uh they used that this is mostly that, and they had like four or five different strains of yeast. And each lot that they would use, they they would start each lot with a different strain, and that strain would bring out different textures and flavors in the wine because that Savion Blanc really responds well to the um to the different yeast. You know, a lot of people, well, you got to use the yeast that's in the air, the natural yeast, and that is nice, but here it's very intentional and it's bringing out different characteristics. They had like four or five different yeasts, and each one of them, when they went to blending, you're bringing in different flavors and textures into the wine with basically the same grapes. So that's a nice way to bring complexity in with a kind of a value-priced wine. And this isn't value-priced as such, I mean this is a good New Zealand wine. I remembered the days, it wasn't that long ago, when New Zealand Sal Blancs were mad dog wines. Spiky, uh wild flavors, good, I loved it. I I kind of like a crazy wine. I mean, they used to like Zinfandel back in the day, Shiraz back in the day when they were trying to push the envelope. New Zealand's kind of calm themselves down. And they're kind of coming more in line with the Lord of the Valley in France and other places too. Which is nice because you don't you don't need uh a stunt wine all the time. You know, it's sometimes just a wine that tastes good is good enough, or more than good enough, really. This thing's delicious. Yeah, this is a really nice wine. It's it's it's your classic Marlboro Sauvignon Blanc. It's made the quick way, but it's got a lot of intentionality to it. It tastes great. Uh the acidity is really in the pocket and it gives the wine good length. There's nothing not to like about this wine. So it's the Bobic Marlboro Sauvignon Blanc 2025. I got it at Trader Joe's, but you can find it anywhere else, probably for as good a price, or maybe a little better, or just a buck or two worse. So this is a nice wine. Um, maybe Trader Joe's sometime will decide to make some bring some more wines in, or maybe they're getting out of it altogether. Seems to be not a big deal to them. So adios keep it cheap. This is a very good uh New Zealand Savion Blanc, and I got a good I got a wild one coming up. It's from Trader Joe's too, but this is something I've never seen before, and we'll talk about that in a few days. So adios, keep it cheap. Bye bye.