L.A.S Vino SBDB Sauvignon Blanc Dynamic Blend 2025

Mike Bennie - The Wine Front
"Strap in for the superlatives. The advocacy is here. This is stellar. It defies the varieties inherent overtness and straps in serious minerality, a compact and yet concentrated flavour profile, scintillating acidity. appropriate, substantial savouriness but only as a harmonious counter to subdued but refreshing, just-ripe tropical fruits and laid back citrusy freshness. It clatters across the palate with its brine, it tightens on gentle trim of chalky pucker, it finishes with more brine and a good dose of pink grapefruit sizzle. Utter charm coupled to proper complexity. A serious contender for one of the greats of the variety in this wide, brown land. I’m gunna go to that place…"

Vineyard

A certified organic and biodynamic site at the northern end of the Cape, and a vineyard unlike almost any other in Margaret River. For several years, the site has been left almost entirely to its own devices: unpruned, untamed and without trellising. The vines sprawl freely across the landscape, while pigs, geese, guinea fowl and cows roam amongst them. The vineyard faces north, with a small creek running through its centre, while native flowers and plants flourish beneath the vines. There are no herbicides, no pesticides and no cultivation. It is dynamic in every sense of the word - biodynamic, constantly evolving, and full of attitude, energy, and new ideas. More than simply an unconventional vineyard, it offers a fascinating glimpse at what a different approach to viticulture might look like. For the 2025 vintage, the vines were left completely unpruned, resulting in an extraordinarily low yield of just one tonne per hectare.

Winemaking

All fruit was hand-picked and cooled overnight before being carefully hand-sorted the following day. A portion was cold whole-bunch pressed to preserve purity, freshness and line, while the remainder was destemmed and left on skins for 24 hours in a cool room to build texture, flavour and complexity. After settling, the juice was fermented in a combination of clay amphora and large-format oak. The wine moved naturally through various stages of malolactic fermentation during its élevage, with sulphur added only shortly before blending. The objective throughout was not to impose a particular winemaking style, but to create a beautifully balanced wine capable of capturing the wonderfully wild character of this remarkable vineyard.

Wine

Forget almost everything you expect from Sauvignon Blanc. This isn't a wine defined by varietal character; it is defined by its vineyard. Much of its life was spent slowly evolving in barrel and amphora, fermentation and maturation seemingly flowing into one another. The result is wonderfully textural and complex, with layers of lemon and lime, passionfruit and citrus, wrapped around a distinctive sea-salt minerality. There is richness without heaviness, texture without losing freshness, and an intriguing savoury quality running beneath the fruit. Each mouthful seems to reveal something different. This is Sauvignon Blanc viewed through the lens of an extraordinary site rather than the conventions of the grape variety - wild, complex, saline and beautifully individual. A wine with a genuine sense of place, and for us, one of the most exciting wines of the vintage.