Winemaker Notes
#66 of Wine Spectator's Top 100 of 2020
Abundant notes of grapefruit, honeysuckle, passionfruit, and citrus zest evolve from the glass. At first, the palate is expansive and leads with a wall of sweet-scented fruits and a soft- but balanced- acid spine. The mid-palate grows to another level, where supple phenolics offer a framework to further lift the fruit. The wine continues to unfold and is very long and persistent. This is a seriously drinkable Sauvignon Blanc that will continue to develop for up to seven years.
Want to taste Invivo X with Sarah Jessica Parker?
Open a bottle and enjoy a virtual tasting of the inaugural vintages of the Invivo X New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Provençal Rosé along with creators Sarah Jessica Parker, Rob Cameron, Tim Lightbourne, and Wine.com’s own Gwendolyn Osborn.
Ready to taste with SJP? Watch the tasting here.
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Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
Invivo X, Sarah Jessica Parker is created with New Zealand-based Invivo….
The Invivo X, SJP award-winning wine range is a collaboration between Sarah Jessica Parker and New Zealand winery Invivo, featuring a Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand and a French Rosé. The partnership covers aspect of creating the wines, with SJP being hands on from the label design to the winemaking and wine blending itself.
New Zealand’s Invivo is one of the country’s leading producers who own one of New Zealand’s oldest wineries, and Cofounders Tim Lightbourne and Rob Cameron taste and blend each new vintage with Sarah Jessica Parker so the wine is made to her taste preferences. One of the most awarded celebrity wine brands in recent years, Invivo X, SJP has clocked up more than 60 Gold medals and 90+ scores for both wines since its launch in 2019, including three 90+ points from Wine Spectator for its first three vintages of the Sauvignon Blanc.
“I feel fortunate that I was able to meet my Invivo X, SJP partners Tim and Rob in person after two years apart and together blend our fourth vintage of Sauvignon Blanc. We were looking to build on the quality of our previous vintages and are thrilled with the result. Each of the base wines had great personalities so combining them to create something special took some work at the blending table. Our final 2022 Sauvignon Blanc blend is tropical and has wonderful fresh citrus aromatics with a full and round mouthfeel and long finish. We are eager for Wine.com customers to try it.”
“It’s so important that Sarah Jessica is involved in blending of the new vintage of Invivo X, SJP each year as she represents the tastes of our customers and what they are looking for in their glass” says Rob. “Sarah Jessica has developed a beautiful style of Sauvignon Blanc that is soft with a subtle oak influence, which is created by some late harvesting, a little bit of skin contact and using French barriques and hogsheads as well as non-barrel blonde oak products.
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.
Capable of a vast array of styles, Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, refreshing variety that equally reflects both terroir and varietal character. Though it can vary depending on where it is grown, a couple of commonalities always exist—namely, zesty acidity and intense aromatics. This variety is of French provenance. Somm Secret—Along with Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc is a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. That green bell pepper aroma that all three varieties share is no coincidence—it comes from a high concentration of pyrazines (herbaceous aromatic compounds) inherent to each member of the family.