Saint Clair Vicar's Choice New Zealand Merlot 2022

Description

Chocolate, Oak, Spice

Ripe red fruits and spice with a touch of savoury oak. Dark garnet. Lifted aromas of ripe red fruits with perfumed Christmas cake spices. Bright and fruit forward in style with generous offerings of stewed plum and spice. The palate is round and full with a chocolate like structure and savoury oak on the finish. Drinking well now this wine will continue to develop and impress for up to five years from vintage date.

Fruit was harvested from a number of specifically chosen, naturally low cropping vineyards from both Marlborough’s Wairau Plain and the Hawke’s Bay wine growing district. The vineyards were carefully monitored as they ripened to full maturity and harvested mid-April.

Grapes were de-stemmed into small stainless steel fermenters for a five-day cold soak to help maximise flavour and colour extraction. The juice was inoculated with specialised yeast to complete fermentation and then hand plunged and pumped over for gentle extraction of flavour colour and tannin. The young wine was kept in contact with skins and tasted daily until the right extraction and balance was achieved then gently pressed. Once settled it was then racked to seasoned French oak where it underwent secondary fermentation (malolactic fermentation).  After ageing on light lees the wine was blended, fined, balanced and carefully prepared for bottling.

Food Pairing: A perfect match for beef bourguignon with sweet potato.