• French oak
• Dark plum & raspberry
• Violets & dried herbs
• Supple tannins

"Fresh, vibrant Syrah from a favourable vintage with dark berry, raspberry, blueberry, wood-smoke, spice and nutty oak flavours. A supple, elegant wine with appealing fragrance" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review

"From young vines on a north-facing slope near the coast, the 2019 vintage was hand-picked and matured for 16 months in French oak barriques (40 per cent new). Full-coloured, with a fragrant, slightly earthy bouquet, it is mouthfilling, with blackcurrant, plum and spice flavours, showing good density and vigour, supple tannins and a long finish. A powerful young red, it's well worth cellaring to 2023+" Michael Cooper

A typical Hawke’s Bay Syrah with violets, lifted spice and dried herbs on the nose. On the palate, it’s medium weight with great concentration and texture and a little tightness which promises a long life and gathering complexity. Dark plum, spice and earthy characters all layer across soft, supple tannin and balanced acidity.

The vineyards of Te Awanga are characterised by shallow volcanic loess soils over deep gravels – ideal for creating wine of great flavour. Underlying these soils is a rising and falling clay pan at about 35 centimetres. Even though it’s a challenge for grape growing, the pan limits vine vigour and is a major factor in concentrating the flavours of the fruit. The slopes behind our cellar door where our Syrah is planted add aspect to the unique character of the site, with the north-east facing slope capturing extra heat and sunlight during the day. The coastal climate, with its sea breezes and mild day and night temperatures, is vital in creating slow ripening fruit which also intensifies the flavours of both red and white wines. The 2019 season was wonderfully set up and ended with a long, dry period that meant the grapes were picked based on flavour and balance.

Grapes were hand harvested and 100% destemmed into an open-top fermenter where fruit was left to soak for a few days until fermentation started. It was then hand plunged throughout ferment and left resting on skins for ten days before being pressed to French oak barriques, 40% of which were new. The wine went through spontaneous MLF in Spring and spent a total of 16 months in barrel before being blended and bottled un-fined. We work hard in the vineyard and winery to create an environment which allows minimal handling and as a result have produced a wine that’s got as much flavour and character as we could manage.

Te Awanga is a sleepy seaside village. There’s a lot of reasons why it was first settled in the 1800’s, but we’re picking that one of them was probably not that there’s a great point break. A break which works particularly well when the seas are heavy and easterly. In local parlance, ‘the loom’ is the name given to the best wave of the day.
Every day there are countless waves, but every day there will be one that is the best. That’s the loom. The challenge is that you never know if the wave you’re considering catching is the loom, or whether it’s in fact going to be in the next set. So you need to be out there a lot, the longer you’re out, the better chance you’ll have of seeing it and riding it. And of course everyone has a different version of the perfect wave, so there’s a lot of trash talk about which was the best of the day, plenty of room for unbridled opinion.

Contains sulphites.