Misty Cove Ella Maria Sauvignon Blanc

We call him Mr Misty Cove but his real name’s Andrew. The Misty Cove label is the hard graft of southern man Andrew and his whanau who cover every base in their boutique wine business. From the wine making and vineyard work, to sales and marketing. A true 100% family owned and operated Kiwi wine business if we ever saw one!

Andrew’s not interested in bourgeois BS when it comes to wine making. “Good wine for good times” as he puts it.

We thought pink was Andrew’s favourite colour until we realised Ella Maria (with a pretty pink typo on the label) was named after their first daughter. A limited edition wine with only 1500 bottles made and only the third release ever of this label.

This is Marlborough Sauvy but probably not as you know it. That’s because after the grapes are hand harvested and whole bunch pressed but they then undergo a wild fermentation in French oak for 9 months. The result is a much more complex wine with an array of flavours, more so than your standard zingy, aromatic style SauvyB.

Awarded 5 Stars and 95/100 from Sam Kim, he called it “offers excellent concentration and expansive mouthfeel, wonderfully complemented by creamy texture and stylish oak undertones…A magnificent alternative-style.”

You can typically expect to fork out a bit more for quality oak aged Sauvy (like Cloudy Bay’s Te Koko and Dog Point’s Section 94) – this is a great example of a different style Sauvy at a fraction of the price.

Pair this one with fresh seafood like scallops, salmon and lobster, or pork and veal.