Te Mata Estate Awatea Hawke's Bay Cabernet Merlot 2024

Description

Chocolate, Oak, Raspberry

"This is comparable to a high-ranked Cru Classé Bordeaux, at a fraction of the price. The bouquet is classic and inviting with blackcurrant, dark cherry, tobacco, fennel, and fine oak with a floral overtone. It’s mouthfilling, succulent, and supple with a silky flow and persistence. Splendidly composed and styled finishing impressively long and robust" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Jan 2026

"Here’s a pretty serious and structured Awatea, and it’s one of the best releases to date" Gary Walsh, Dec 2025

"This wine shows such focus, with blackberry, black currant, walnut, graphite and some dark chocolate aromas. Medium- to full-bodied with layers of ripe, beautiful tannins and a long and caressing finish. It’s all here and shows such an enticing texture. 62% Merlot, 27% cabernet sauvignon and 11% cabernet franc. Hard not to drink now. Drink or hold" James Suckling, Jamessuckling.com, Jan 2026

"Ruby-purple. This is a precisely balanced and elegant, perfumed merlot with both ripe, leafy freshness, bright red plum and redcurrant flavours as well as floral nuance, sustained minerality just enough oak to notice. The rounded, grainy tannins are structural and polished, allowing the mid-weight flavours to tumble across the palate with easy poise. Not a big or dense wine but one with plenty of grace and elegance. Delicious now though it will continue to smoothen and unfold over the mid-term" Stephen Wong, The Real Review

Bright crimson with a royal purple edge, Awatea ’24 glows in the glass with youthful poise and vitality. The aroma is refined and perfumed, offering blackberry, dark plum, cassis, redcurrant, and dark cherry with layers of thyme, cedar, tapenade and a gentle floral lift. The palate is generous and seamless, with black plum and blackberry carried by silky, ripe tannins and a savoury umami thread of black truffle, spice and plum sauce. The finish is long, polished and mouth-watering, revealing clarity, balance, and a classical Awatea with depth and graceful evolution ahead. Awatea ’24 is closed with a Diam cork and will evolve in bottle for at least 10 years from harvest.

First made in 1982, Awatea continues to represent the best of the classic Hawke’s Bay merlot / cabernet blend. Floral aromas with intense blackberry, currant and dark plum flavours lead to a rich, supple palate with a sustained finish.

Awatea takes its name from the historic ship SS Awatea (a Maori word meaning ‘Eye of the Dawn’) that sailed the Auckland – Sydney – Wellington route in the late 1930s. The Awatea was requisitioned as troop transport in WWII and was sunk off Algeria in 1942.

The grapes for Awatea ’24 were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s Hawke’s Bay vineyards between 21 March and 9 April 2024.

The separate parcels of grapes were destemmed before a traditional warm-plunged fermentation and extended maceration on skins. The resulting wines were then run to new and seasoned French oak barrels for 17 months, with 28% being new oak. Throughout this time, they were regularly topped and racked. The separate wines were blended in November 2024, then returned to barrel for their second winter. The finished wine was then fined and bottled in November 2025. The final blend is 62% merlot, 27% cabernet sauvignon and 11% cabernet franc.