Iona Monopole Elgin Highlands Sauvignon Blanc

Elgin Highlands Sauvignon Blanc 2024 displays beautiful purity of limes and ripe gooseberry, with tropical, floral and fine herbal notes, ruby grapefruit and white pear drop on the finish. This is cool climate Sauvignon Blanc - vibrant, mineral, elegant, balanced and delicate, with a long, layered and complex finish.

Winemaking:

We aim for elegance, balance and to express the unique terroir of the Elgin Highlands. Grapes were hand-picked into crates early in the morning to ensure that the grapes stayed cool. Each of the 9 blocks are harvested and vinified separately.

After gentle pressing, the must was settled, maintaining a temperature of 6-8 C. Fermentation occurred at 14-16 C, using different commercial yeast strains particularly suited to Sauvignon Blanc. The wine was kept on the gross lees for 5 months and stirred regularly to enhance the richness of the mid-palate.

The 8% Sémillon component was fermented naturally in 2nd and 3rd fill 500L French oak barrels to enhance the mid palate weight and to add complexity to the wine. A selection of different Sauvignon Blanc vineyard sites were naturally fermented in 500L French oak barrels. The barrel fermentation component made up 4% of the final blend.

Vintage Notes:

The 2024 season was characterised by two main factors, record-breaking winter rainfall persisting into September and notable heat spikes in January and February. The winter months of June, July, August 2023 provided us with good rainfall, low average daytime temperatures and cold average minimum temperatures which pushed our vines into deep dormancy.

Spring got off to a cold and wet start and will be remembered for the massive storm and heavy downpours towards end of September. The colder and wetter conditions led to budbreak being about a week to 2 weeks later than previous years. The remainder of the growing phase from October to December 2023 was drier than normal and was characterised by unusual Easterly winds, which tends to bring warmer/ drier conditions. Later flowering was aided by the warmer conditions, but windy conditions during this period led to forming of smaller bunches and berries.

January and February experienced notably heat spikes, which had an impact on the stress of the vineyards. It was also notable that these months were characterised by higher nighttime temperatures than previous vintages. Proximity to the cold Atlantic Ocean and altitude are the two main factors contributing to making Iona one of the coolest vineyards sites in the country. So, while we experience excessive heat spikes during this period, our vines were still busy going through veraison and the warmer drier weather help the bunches to go through veraison quickly, leading to the maturity of the berries being more even. The drier weather also helped to control vigour and gave relieve from the high disease pressure earlier in the season.

The quality of the grapes that arrived at the cellar were exceptional. Smaller bunches and berries contributed to wines with lovely flavour and concentration and the resulting wines are showing beautiful expressive fruit, with lovely fruit concentration and bright acidities, giving the wine great vibrancy and tension.

Technical Details:

ALCOHOL: 13.3%

RESIDUAL SUGAR: 1.4 g/l

TOTAL ACIDITY: 7.1 g/l

PH: 3.2

What's in the box
Iona Monopole Elgin Highlands Sauvignon Blanc 750 ml