Coopers Creek Select Vineyards Metals & Gravels Hawke's Bay Merlot 2024

Description

Cherry, Oak, Spice

A plush and elegant Merlot showcasing ripe dark plum, blackberry, and subtle cassis, layered with notes of toasted oak, vanilla, and baking spice from careful barrel aging. Silky tannins and a long, warming finish make this a perfect match for hearty dishes.

Steeped in history, Coopers Creek have been crafted from New Zealand’s best grape growing regions for over 40 years. With a legacy of making great wines we are proudly family owned and sustainably produced – protecting our lands for future generations.

Single Vineyard wine from the Waikahu Vineyard in the Bridge Pa sub-region of Hawke’s Bay. The 2024 vintage was very low cropping so this wine has an exceptional concentration of flavour. The fruit was machine harvested and gently transferred to open top fermenters in the winery. Extra care was taken to retain as many whole berries as possible. After a brief ‘cold soak’ fermentation commenced with a combination of ‘wild’ vineyard yeasts and the endemic yeast population in the winery. The tanks were hand plunged twice per day to extract colour. Once fermentation was complete, the young wine was drained to barrels for malo-lactic fermentation and maturation. Fermented on skins for 12 days with wild yeasts followed by aging for 12 months in a mixture of new and seasoned American oak barrels. Deeply coloured red wine in the purple/ blue spectrum. Aromatics redolent of ripe black plums with nuances of cocoa and vanilla spice. The palate is full bodied with silky smooth tannins and a long satisfying finish.

Food Pairing: The wine is already approachable, but will cellar happily into the long term in a cool environment. The oak ageing makes this wine an excellent match with full-flavoured rich dishes like a slow cooked-beef cheek or a creamy tomato based dish.