Our First review – Longridge Sauvignon Blanc !!

This wine was the first that we shared in the first week of university. So you may say that this blogs creation is all thanks to a cheap box of wine. It really shows how wine can be an amazing catalyst for conversation and bring people together no matter the quality. We share a similar passion for wine as well as a similar story of being far from our homes and families. Since that first night we have made our way through our fair share of boxes of longridge. Despite the wine having the same average taste that we experienced with our first box, we have both come to have a connection with the wine and have found a comfort in it.

So we have tried to put our personal connection to the wine aside and give you an unbiased review, but it is important to note that a personal connection to wine can and will change the way that you view it. That being said we will now give you all the more technical aspects of The Longridge Sauvignon Blanc 😁.

Price :

This box cost us NZ$19.99 ( £9.58, R 229.88, US $12.31 ). For 2 Litres , which is equivalent to 2.7 bottles of wine. So safe to say it was a bargain. We got this price with a New World Club card. The price without a Club card would be NZ$ 24.99 ( £11.98, R287.38, US $15.39). Both prices for the box are definitely cheap. But it does go to show how making use of discounts and Club cards can be very beneficial and ensure you always get the best prices for your wines, which as a student is always on the mind.

Appearance:

Straight off the bat you can see that this wine is extremely light. Which is not out of character for a cheap young wine that has definitely not undergone any aging. It is a pale lemon colour. you can pretty much see straight through it. You can see by looking at it that it is not a wine you are going to lock up and save for a special occasion (you would already be able to tell that from the box though 😂). As we had been drinking out of mugs the first few times we had this wine we were actually rather shocked with how light the wine was once decanted into proper glasses.

Nose:

This wine is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t trust the flavour profile of a wine given on the bottle( or box). The companies will be trying to sell you a wine that is easy drinking and fruity and palatable. They are trying to create a sense of complexity which is likely not present. This wine says it has “Tropical and herbaceous aromas with hints of passionfruit and citrus”. However we did not find this to be the case at all.

This wine has extremely light aromas, it was very difficult to pick out any notes from the nose at all. Theres a chance that what we picked out was our imagination and what we were expecting it to smell like.

We picked up on lemony notes. Some slightly floral notes, almost like jasmine or honeysuckle, as-well as some more artificial notes such as chlorine and rubber. There was absolutely no complexity to the aromas, which for a wine of this price is definitely to be expected. The more artificial plasticky notes could definitely have come from the goon bag itself as opposed to the actual wine …

Palate :

The taste is only slightly more pronounced than the aromas. We still noticed the same citrus and floral notes on the palate. There was also a slight green apple flavour, like you would expect from bubble gum. As well as notes of undercooked asparagus. Didier insists that the wine becomes smokey after a few glasses … but who knows how accurate that is, so take from it what you will.

The main taste isn’t of flavours from the wine but more an average cheap white wine taste. Saskia’s first impression during our tasting was “It tastes like a bad Hangover”. This just shows how easily this goes down, and the more you drink the better it tastes 😅.

As for the more physical characteristics of the wine. It is super dry, very acidic, low to medium bodied with a thin mouth feel. There is almost no finish to it, as soon as you swallow it is gone.

Conclusion:

This wine would likely be classed as acceptable. It’s by no means terrible. It is drinkable and definitely has its time and place ( how often that may be for some people is a different story). This can be a uni party wine, or a cheap picnic option. It definitely doesn’t deserve to be written off due to the fact it comes from a box.

Top tip #1: Put ice in your Longridge Sauvignon blanc and not just in summer to cool it down. I know some wine professionals may consider that borderline blasphemy but with a wine of this quality you can hardly ruin it. It will slowly dilute your wine and make it more palatable (if you haven’t gulped it down before the ice can melt that is).

Top Tip #2: Drink your cheap wine with cheese. And I know what Your thinking “if we cant afford good wine how the hell can we afford cheese”. And our response would be it does not have to be expensive cheese by any means; we have been buying camembert for NZ$3.50 and leaving it to ripen all day long. If you are worried about leaving cheese out all day long, don’t be, just add a note like we did and go about your day.

The cheese will just add an extra layer of complexity to what you are drinking and make it that much more tasty.

Overall this wine is pretty good, and for the price you absolutely cannot complain. So if you are looking for a new extra cheap weekday wine don’t pass by this one.

Thank you for reading through our first official post. I hope you enjoyed and will be subscribing to make sure you don’t miss any of our future posts :). We would love to hear your feedback on what you like and or dislike about the way we are formatting our posts. As well as anything you would want to see in the future.

Until next time,

Saskia and Didier 🍾