Wine of the week: a brave sauvignon blanc that hits the bullseye

2019 Fincher &amp; Co., On the Brink Sauvignon Blanc

published 9 October 2020

2019 Fincher & Co., On the Brink Sauvignon Blanc, The Brink Vineyard, Renwick, Marlborough, New Zealand

£21.99, reduced to £18.99 on a Mix Six deal, majestic.co.uk

This amazing new wine was due to arrive in the Majestic depot on 5 October so it should be on their website next Monday. Look out for it there: it is a tiny parcel and it won’t make it physically into Majestic stores. Made by Kiwi wine supremo Ben Glover and English Master of Wine Liam Steevenson, this collaboration seeks out truly amazing plots of vines and then captures them in limited-edition bottlings. Brave and often bonkers, these wines are somewhat hit and miss on my palate, but when they hit, it is always a bullseye. On the Brink comes from Marlborough’s oldest organic vineyard, planted in 1991. It is made with partial skin contact before being released into older French oak barrels to slumber. With only 1.6 hectares of sauvignon blanc and 0.67 hectares of semillon, this is an ultra-rare wine!

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The layers of seriously impressive citrus and herb fruit are interwoven with discreet smokiness, making this a veritable mille-feuille of tanginess, texture and length. There is an “everyday” white from this duo, too, which is also essential drinking: 2019 Fincher & Co, Wairau Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand (£11.95, red-white.co.uk) comes from another single site, Dillons Point. Precise and persistent with piercingly dry citrus and cut grass notes, underpinned by seashell saltiness, this wine also shows that these guys mean business.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.