Sauvignon Blanc will start off the 2015 vintage releases at Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery this season. The vintage was another long, hot growing season that has made for an intensely flavoured, rich style of wine that is sure to be popular in the tasting room. When it was bottled, owner Walter Gehringer (pictured) knew that something was a little different. “This is the most intense I’ve seen it in a while,” he explained. “The whole bottling room was filled with its aroma.”
The difference comes down to the vintage. “We’re finding that the flavours, weights, and textures are richer and fuller in 2015 compared to 2014.” Because 2014 was also an amazing year, the expectation for 2015 was a larger crop of grapes since there was no cold winter to damage the vines in between. What happened at harvest was unexpectedly lower volumes of juice than predicted. “The yield per ton from the berries was smaller,” explains Gehringer. “The result is more intense flavours.” It seems the bar that was set very high in 2014 has now been raised even higher.
The big question with 2015 was how August’s wildfire on Mt. Kobau affected the grapes. “The fire had no influence at all,” says Gehringer. The smoke at their level was cold and the most of the valley-filling smoke was from the U.S. and not Mt. Kobau. Analyses on the grapes yielded no critical differences and tastings of the wines have confirmed it.
2015 Sauvignon Blanc
Intense aromas of ripe apples, gooseberries, flinty minerals, and small flowers. The palate is fuller than any previous Sauvignon Blanc with more ripe apples, citrus peel, and fresh herbs.
~ Luke Whittall