Love This Sauvignon Blanc-Loveblock Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2023

Loveblock Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2023

You have heard of Kim Crawford. He sold his brand in 2003, but it is still going strong.

In 2006, Kim and Erica Crawford started Loveblock Winery. I think it was originally a sheep farm.

Today, the vineyards are certified organic, sustainable, and vegan-friendly.

And the Sauvignon Blanc is delicious.

Read the review and listen to the PODCAST for all the info!

Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com

or email us at podcast@cheapwinefinder.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey, welcome. It's uh Domain Dave with cheapwinefinder.com for a long, long time. And what we do is what we do value price wine reviews. We've been doing it for a long time. But we started because uh there are a lot of people doing wine reviews, but for expensive wines and the wines that everybody drinks, there was very few wine reviews, and they were all kind of well, so it's good if you like that sort of thing, kind of reviews, which was nonsense. I didn't even drink it. So we started drinking it and we started liking it, and we never stopped. And today we've got a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but a bit different than the usual, you know, value-priced ones, which I like a lot and they're really good. But this one is the Love Block Marlboro Sauvignon Blanc 2023. Now, this um Love Block is a winery from Kim Crawford and Erica Crawford. Erica is um in the vineyard, she's a viticulturist, and uh Kim Crawford is the winemaker. And as you know, or you should if you're listening about uh value-priced wines, Kim Crawford is a large New Zealand uh wine brand that Kim Crawford sold in 2003. It's still going strong, seemed to not need it. And one funny thing about that one, and I don't know how funny it is, but uh what I read that it was a virtual winery, which meant they purchased grapes from vineyards, and that they rented space in the existing winery to make their wines, and they made such a big hit that they bought Lovelock, and I think they uh I think it was a sheep pasture in when they started doing it. I think it was 2006, and now it's a um a state uh state vineyards, and they have a state-of-the-art winery. Um, they're sustainably farmed and organic. But my bottle did not say organic, but the website does, so I'm guessing that the uh certification came after the labels were printed up. That happens, and this is vegan friendly too. Uh so all the kind of the good things you want about a wine are in here. Um, yeah, shouldn't all wine be vegan friendly? Yeah, it should, but it isn't because the fining process, the fining process is when the very end before they bottle the wine, they get the dead yeast out of the tanks from the fermentation process and like um you know, skin that made it through the presses and the filters, uh, grape skins. And to get it all out, they normally used egg whites, which is not vegan. I'm gonna take a sip. But they can do it with minerals. I don't know which minerals. I don't know which minerals are equivalent to egg whites, but but you know, I wasn't that good in science class, but um, but there you go. So now uh Kim Crawford's got a kind of a fancy estate, uh which they weren't before, but they still make really good wines. And it's a husband-and-wife team where the wife's in the vineyard making sure the grapes are good, uh the husband's uh in the in the winery making sure the wine is good. I think that's a good team, if you ask me. So, how's the wine? Uh, this I got this wine for$15. Um, I think it's I think it's sometimes closer to 20, but I think you'll get it on sale, especially now that um wines are wines and spirits are off by like sometimes up to 14%, what they have been. They say young people are not um drinking wine and beer and spirits. I don't know what they're doing because they don't seem to be all that sober, but they're not drinking this. I think it's like they can't drink beer and play be good at video games or something. I'm not sure what it is, but that's beside the point. I'm gonna take another step. I typically tell you when I'm doing one of these Savion Black New Zealand, even other places, it's farm to market. Yep, yep. But you um you you you grab the grapes, you ferment them, you add some yeasts, uh certain yeast for different flavors to bring up that, and then a couple months, and then you got a wine after you've you you set you age it for a little bit. This one is all small batch from their fancy vineyard. It is fermented in small batch in concrete eggs. Concrete is a really good um uh a component for wine because what's inside is it's kind of immune to temperature changes and humidity. And when you're making wine, controlling that's really important. The concrete egg gives you kind of like a good good a good good purchase with the wine in there. They also use uh old uh French oak barrels, they use amphora, like in the Greek vessels from the tales of Hercules. They use that, and they use some stainless steel, so they're using multiple different containers for the wine, and every time you use a different container, it's gonna taste different. Just is. I mean, it changes how the how the wine is. Um so it's kind of cool that they're using concrete eggs now before. And another thing they do that other people don't do with their um Savillon Blanc, especially in the lower price range, is they did malactic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation happens in red wine all the time, it happens in Chardonnay when they want it to, and now they're doing it Savillon Blanc, which changes the tart grapes into rounded grapes. I'm gonna take a sip. It's smooth, it is complex, it has a great taste. It's got um lemons and um nectarines and apples and dried dried um dried pineapples, uh, coconut milk. Yeah, I mean there's some really nice things. Uh the acidity is seamless. It's really this is a nice wine. I mean, you know, the the the inexpensive ones are like flavor bombs, which is a good thing to have flavor bomb of. There's some there's some bombs you don't want in wine, but flavors one you want. This isn't this, this is a fine wine, and it's you know, under 20 bucks. I found it for 15. And it's got all the things you want about a wine, it's got organic, it's got uh it's got uh they use the yeast from the vineyard. Uh that's always thought that the yeast that's in the air and virtually every vineyard has yeast floating in the air, and a spontaneous fermentation rather than commercial yeast. And I don't think in value-priced wines that commercial yeast is a bad thing because what they're doing is that different yeast will bring out different flavors in the wine. And though, you know, when you're trying to get the most out of a value wine where you're not, you don't have the ability or the budget to do a lot of things, you know, using yeast to cut corners, not cut corners, but to get what you want out of the good thing. But here they're using what what is in the vineyard, and that's always thought that the yeast that actually floats around in the air in the vineyard is the right yeast for that wine. And that's what they uh and that's what they think. It's what it should be. Take it a sip here. This is not your typical Sauvignon Blanc, and it's not a$40 wine. It's just I found it for$15. Um, it should be on sale, especially with the spring and summer coming up. Check it out, it's worth checking out. I love Savillon Blanc. Um, I love it from everywhere, I love it from France, I love it from um New Zealand, I love it from the West Coast. I'm into Savillon Blanc. And the Love Block uh Marlboro Savillon Blanc 2023 from Kim and Erica Crawford. It's a pretty good wine. So adios, keep it cheap. I'll be talking to everybody in a couple days. I've got a uh I've got a California Ziffundel that was in bourbon barrels. We'll just see how that goes. Adios, keep it cheap. Bye bye.