Nautilus Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2024

Nautilus sits on Rapaura Road in Renwick, in the heart of the Marlborough wine country. What makes Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc distinctive starts with the stony old riverbed soils, long sunshine, and cold nights off the Pacific. But the real magic occurs in the vineyard, in the crop yield decisions that give the wine its flavour and tension.

Nautilus keeps those decisions close. Most of the fruit comes from the estate’s own stony sites across the Wairau and Southern Valleys, the rest from a few trusted growers who never push the yield on their vines. Night harvest, cool ferment, five months on the lees.

The estate has been in the same family since its first vintage in 1985. Robert Hill Smith is a fifth generation vigneron, and Clive Jones has been the winemaker since 1998.

The 2024 is taut and precise: grapefruit and white pear, a fine chalky line, lime through the middle, a whisper of cut grass on the finish.