"Savoury and serious wine with violets and black fruit. Vibrant and peppery. Ageworthy. Recommend decanting" International Wine Challenge 2018

This Syrah has complex flavours of dark berries and plum with hints of violets pepper and smoke on the nose. The palate is rich and silky with a long fine spicy finish.

2014 was another excellent vintage for Hawkes Bay with great conditions for producing ripe elegant Syrah. We had a lovely warm dry growing season with temperatures above the long term average. Through the growing season our Elms Vineyard on the Gimblett Gravels was micromanaged with very early crop regulation to one bunch per shoot and leaf removal in the fruit zone. Due to this careful viticulture we were able to achieve very even ripeness across the vineyard.

In early April we harvested the clean and ripe Syrah from our Elms vineyard. After de-stemming, the fruit was fermented in small stainless steel fermenters using a mixture of hand plunging and pump over techniques for cap management. After post ferment maceration on skins, the batches were run to French barriques, 20% of which were new. The wine remained in barrel for fourteen months with regular topping, with only some being racked once after malolactic
fermentation. The wine was then bottled after a light filtration.