New Sileni Estates lower-calorie wine offers transparency for wine lovers

Sileni Estates is offering wine lovers the chance to lighten up their glass of wine with the launch of a new range of lower-calorie wines. Each bottle will include a full nutritional panel, a move which is rare in the wine industry.

“Our Wisp range of wines was created to deliver fewer calories in the glass, without compromising on flavour. Every bottle includes a food-style nutritional panel, outlining total kilojoules and total sugar, providing transparency for consumers,” says Sileni Estates CEO, Graeme Avery.

Graeme Avery says his background in healthcare publishing was motivation to produce a wine for health-conscious wine drinkers. The use of a nutritional panel provides full disclosure, ensuring people know exactly what they’re drinking. 

The Sileni Wisp range includes a Hawke’s Bay Sauvignon Blanc and Hawke’s Bay Pinot Gris. The wines are naturally lighter due to the use of grapes picked early in the growing season.
“As a winemaking team we needed to ensure that the wines taste great, delivering plenty of flavour, while remaining lower in sugar and alcohol. The secret to achieving this is our warm Hawke’s Bay climate, which allows us to harvest grapes with ripe flavours that contain less sugar,” says Chief Winemaker, Grant Edmonds.

The Wisp Hawke’s Bay Sauvignon Blanc and the Wisp Hawke’s Bay Pinot Gris both sit at 9.5% alcohol and contain 25% less calories than standard dry white wine. A 100ml glass of Wisp Sauvignon Blanc contains only 260kJ. The same sized glass of Wisp Pinot Gris holds only 250kJ.

“These wines provide a much lighter alternative for wine drinkers. However, we weren’t prepared to compromise on taste to reduce the calorie content. Too many low-calorie wines grown in cool climates suffer from high acidity and unripe flavours. We’re confident that Wisp delivers a great drinking experience,” says Graeme.

The Wisp Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris have a RRP of $17.00 a bottle. Both wines are now available from good bottle stores and select supermarkets.

About Sileni Estates

Sileni Estates is a major vineyard and winery development in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand's oldest wine region. The first vintage was in 1998 and since then Sileni Estates wines have won world-wide acclaim for their food-friendly wine style.

The winery is named after the Sileni who featured in Roman mythology alongside Bacchus, the God of Wine. They celebrated good wine, good food and good company.

Sileni’s vineyards and winery are based near Hastings, Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The region has a southern latitude of 39° and a climate similar to that of some of the great wine regions of the world. The winery also has vineyards and sources Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the well-known wine producing area of Marlborough.
www.sileni.co.nz