ILLUMINATION SAUVIGNON BLANC 750ML 2024

A multidimensional Sauvignon Blanc with both breadth and precision. Lime zest, lime blossom and tarragon laced with vanilla draw you in. Grapefruit, kumquat and crushed Marcona almonds thread through the first wave of flavours. Excellent medium-bodied concentration carries a penetrating core of pithy fruit, warming spice from barrel ageing, and a fresh, focused finish marked by a backbone of zesty acidity and tension. Hand-picked grapes are pressed with whole clusters, and the juice is native fermented in new and neutral French oak barrels, acacia barrels, and stainless steel barrels as well as egg-shaped concrete fermenters.

Quintessa's 2024 Illumination blends fruit from Napa (55%) and Sonoma (45%). As usual, there's a decent-sized dollop of old-vine Sémillon (14% this year) in the blend, with the rest of the fruit being Sauvignon Blanc—roughly one-third of that is the more aromatic Musqué clone. Fermented and raised in a variety of vessels, including new and old French oak barrels, acacia barrels, stainless steel drums and concrete eggs, it offers up enticing scents of pencil shavings, lemon zest, grapefruit and fig. Plump and medium-bodied in the mouth, it boasts a fine line of acidity from start to finish, giving the fruit a spine to play against and prolonging the concentrated, citrusy finish.