Pét Nat, Saint Clair 2024
Silver, Sommelier Wine Awards 2025
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Why this wine
Pét-nat is usually a small-producer curiosity, made with more enthusiasm than precision; this one comes from a team with thirty years of Marlborough fruit behind it, and the cleanliness shows. Three aromatic varieties from three separate sites give it more shape than most, and at 12% it is an easy bottle to open early in an evening. A good way into the style without the wildness.
At a glance
- Grape
- Pinot Gris 67%, Grüner Veltliner 18%, Riesling 15%
- Region
- Marlborough, New Zealand
- Alcohol
- 12.00%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Drink now (1-3 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Seafood, Salads, Poultry & Pork
How it tastes
Gently sparkling rather than fully fizzy, with fresh green apple, white stone fruit and a squeeze of citrus over a soft, bready lees character. Light and bone-dry at 12%, with brisk acidity and a fine foaming texture; the wine is unfiltered, so a faint haze and a little sediment come with the style. Pinot Gris 67%, Grüner Veltliner 18%, Riesling 15%.
The producer
Neal and Judy Ibbotson were pioneers of the Marlborough wine industry, planting their first vineyards in the valley in 1978 and establishing Saint Clair Family Estate in 1994; the family now owns 160 hectares across ten Marlborough locations, each chosen for what its own terroir can give. The Pinot Gris brings the aromatics and primary fruit and comes off light alluvial gravels where the Waihopai and Wairau rivers meet, while the Grüner Veltliner, which supplies structure and a peppery note, and the Riesling, which supplies acidity and citrus, are grown in the Central Wairau Valley, a warm, sunny river flood plain cooled by winds off the Pacific, with soils running from stony river wash to deep alluvium; every site is sustainably farmed and SWNZ accredited, with minimal spraying, open canopies and careful leaf, shoot and fruit thinning. The wine is made with minimal intervention: the three varieties were lightly pressed and blended before a slow, clean fermentation, which was partially arrested at a chosen balance of remaining sugar and alcohol, and the wine was then racked straight into bottle, capped and left in a cool room to finish fermenting to dryness, trapping the effervescence that fermentation made. Cool spring weather through flowering in 2024 cut yields, but the harvest was quick and finished early, all the fruit in before the end of March, and the low crop gave wines packed with flavour and intensity.
Food and drinking
Serve well chilled, 6–8°C, and open it cold and slowly — it is bottled under a crown cap and is lively. It suits whitebait fritters, crab cakes, a goat's cheese and pea salad or lightly spiced chicken skewers, and is at its best over the next two to three years while the bubble is fresh. No decanting; pour gently and leave the sediment behind. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.