Margrain Botrytis Selection Sauvignon Blanc 2009

 The opportunity arose when a neighbours’ Sauvignon crop was badly stuck with the Bot to make a wine that you don’t come across every day. We waited and watched for more than a month after the “clean” harvest had been carried out as the berries went through every shade of grey, brown, purple and black and the furry pestilence prospered beyond belief, until the time seemed right and we took the punt and hand selected the tiny shrivelled remains. Three days of painfully slow pressing followed and, though half a tank of thick brown muddy liquid was all we had to show for our efforts, five months later a swan has emerged from the duck pond.

The rich deep golden colour betrays what lies beneath. The aroma boldly bursts from the glass, strides in quantum leaps across the tasting bench and wants for nothing. Ripe pear, dried banana, quince paste and swirling lemon zest abound. A little dry straw, a lot of crystallised ginger, dollops of dry chunky marmalade, freshly baked scone dough and plump juicy raisins are all lurking behind a nutmeg and pisco sour complexity. It is massive in the mouth and the heady 286 g/l of residual sugar renders it physically thick and imposingly textural, which is deftly balanced by a veritable hawser of swashbuckling acidity which bursts through the palate like a cluster bomb. As seductive as molasses on a dark night, this voluptuous wine envelops the tonsils and curls up on the tongue yet has no intention of sleeping. Like Pamela Anderson in Baywatch, this rubenesque stunner will be the talking point at your next dinner party and remain so long after the plates have been cleared and the meal a distant memory. Astonishingly, it is not the sweetness that lingers but the clean prickly edge of ginger and allspice which combine to ensure the wine finishes as clean as a whistle and as moreish as condensed milk. This is Sauvignon Blanc Captain, but not as we know it.