Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc

Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp white wine from Marlborough, New Zealand.

Nobilo was started by Nikola Nobilo.  He left Croatia in 1943 and moved to New Zealand to plant the vines and start the business.

He came from a long tradition of family winemaking, reported to be over 300 years.

Fast forward to today, the winemaker is David Edmonds and the grapes for Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc came from the Wairau and Awatere vineyards.

And for a remarkably similar New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, check out my review of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc.

Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc Review

I shared this wine with a group of longtime friends, bringing together a total of four trusted palates.

For this review we tasted the 2014 vintage of this wine.

Similar to other New Zealand wines, Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc had a twist top.

Appearance

The wine’s appearance was golden in color.  It was definitely darker than many other Sauvignon Blancs I’ve experienced.

It was also quite leggy in the glass with many slow falling drips.

Aroma

I served this wine chilled, so it was a little difficult to discern the aroma notes at first.

But after a little time and lots of sniffing, we agreed on enjoyable notes of grapefruit and pineapple in the wine’s aroma.

We didn’t pick up any herbal notes of nettles or fresh cut tomato plant, as the tasting notes suggested.

There was very little sting of alcohol in the nose.  Most of us guessed the alcohol content to be no more than 11.8%.  But it turned out we were quite off in our estimates.

Actual Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc alcohol content 12.5% by volume, per the bottle.

Taste

We all agreed the wine’s taste was tart, clean, crisp and pleasant.

For flavors, the pineapple carried through from the aroma to the taste, as did the grapefruit.

We also noted some granny smith apple.

Finish

The wine’s finish was quite interesting.  It was a two-pronged finish carried by the flavors.

The first, a more tart flavored finish, was short.  However a secondary sweeter finish was noted on the sides of the tongue.  We characterized that as a medium finish.

Overall Opinion

Overall, all four of us greatly enjoyed this wine.  The votes included “liked it”, “pleasant” and “clean and crisp.”

We felt it to be great summer afternoon sipper and agreed on pairing this wine with a nice salad, a light fish dish or with chicken.  Nobilo also suggests oysters, tuna and caviar which sounds great to me!

Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc price $9.99.