Villa Maria Reserve Marlborough Noble Semillon Botrytis Selection 2011

This sublime expression triggered comparisons with Sauternes, France’s great botrytised semillon. Gorgeous scents (lanolin and honey) pave the way to a rich, ambrosia-like mouthful. Its depth, seamless purity and length are all exemplary. The classic Sauternes food match also applies here: the luxurious foie gras.

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Jeremy McKenzie is Marlborough’s own Action Man. When Villa Maria’s senior Marlborough winemaker is not making wine or spending time with his young family, he competes in triathlons, shoots game in the hills and dives in the Sounds. In McKenzie’s world, there’s excitement to be had every season, but he particularly looks forward to the end of every harvest when the time comes to pick the botrytis-affected fruit and make dessert wines. “I love it. The rains through 2011 gave us the opportunity to make noble semillon that year,” he remembers. “There was a lot of good true botrytis as well as plenty of the little green berries that I call ‘lime bullets’. They provide the balancing acidity.”

• Dessert wine
• Marlborough - New Zealand
• NZ$30-$40
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• Cellar: 5 year(s)
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• View the full NZ Dessert Wines 2013 tasting results