Church Road 1 Single Vineyard Redstone Syrah 2018

Description

Oak, Plum, Spice

A core of dark cherry and brighter red berry fruit is overlaid with beautifully fragrant aromas of thyme, violets, clove and anise, supported by subtle oak toast and an underlying savouriness. On the palate the wine is full bodied but fine textured with a gentle tannin structure a balanced acidity bringing length and freshness. Well matched to a wide range of full flavoured game and red meat dishes. Hawke’s Bay Syrah ages very gracefully, and we expect this wine to develop positively for 10 years or more from vintage date.

The Redstone Vineyard in the Bridge Pa Triangle Winegrowing District is situated on a free draining alluvial gravel soil, an old riverbed laid down by the Ngaruroro river some 10,000 years ago, since covered by a shallow layer of wind-blown loess containing a portion of iron rich volcanic ash. Iron oxide from this topsoil has rust stained the gravels and the soils are known locally as ‘red metals’ for this appearance. Similar to the neighbouring Gimblett Gravels district, low water holding capacity restricts vine vigour, resulting in small crops of intensely flavoured fruit, though at Redstone, the shallow iron rich top soils take the wines into a more aromatic, supple and fleshy spectrum. The area is only 30m above sea level, but far enough inland to be relatively well protected from the sea breeze, the vineyard is also sheltered from cold air draining out of the ranges by Roys Hill, and this is our warmest, earliest ripening vineyard, ideally suited to red winegrowing. This is our first release of a Church Road 1 Redstone Syrah.

The 2018 growing season was one of the warmest on record and has produced ripe wines with supple tannins and beautiful fragrance. Some rainfall over the harvest period made careful fruit selection vital for the top wines. Clones were Chave, 470 and mass selection Syrah and trained to two cane VSP. Rigorous crop thinning, shoulder removal, hand bunch placement and intensive canopy management were employed to ensure the best possible fruit quality. Approaching harvest time, we visit the block every two or three days, tasting, evaluating flavour and ripeness and checking for condition with one eye fixed firmly on the weather forecast to ensure harvest is planned at the optimum moment.

Selectively harvested separately, the fruit was then destemmed and crushed and immediately inoculated with a selected yeast strain. Fermentation was allowed to peak at 34 deg C ensuring good extraction of colour and ripe tannin. The wines were allowed to undergo post fermentation maceration for a total time on skins of three weeks. During this time regular aeration was employed to stabilise colour, integrate the tannin and open up fruit aromatics. The wine was then drained and pressed before filling to new (36%) and older tight grained, three year seasoned oak barriques, to complete malolactic fermentation and subsequent maturation for 18 months. A small proportion of the older oak (7%) was Hungarian while the balance was French. The wine was bottled unfined and without cold stabilisation or filtration.