Winemaker:
Kyle Thompson and Hamish Clark

Colour:
Dark dense ruby core with purple highlights.

Aroma:
Dark summer berries perfumed violets and dried thyme combine with vanilla and toasty oak.

Palate:
A full bodied palate with dark fruit flavours of blackberries and black cherry. The structure is fine grained and elegant with fresh clean acidity and a long complex toasty finish.

Ageing potential:
Perfect for drinking immediately this wine will continue to develop and delight for at least five years from vintage date.

Winemaking:
The fruit was held cold for four days prior to ferment to help extract maximum flavour and to enhance colour stability. The fermenting must was hand plunged during primary alcoholic fermentation. When dry the young wine was pressed and then racked off gross lees to a stainless steel tank and a small amount of French oak. It was gently extracted from oak and tank, blended, aged and carefully prepared for bottle.

Viticulture:
The outstanding fruit was sourced from a single vineyard within the Gimblett Gravels winegrowing district of Hawke’s Bay. The vigour moderating, free draining gravel provides a superb base for this low cropping Syrah. The vineyard site has ideal ripening conditions for achieving the intense aromatics and delicate structure that Syrah can give. The fruit was carefully monitored during ripening and harvested in the cool evening at maximum flavour maturity and physiological ripeness.

Wine Analysis:
Alcohol: 13% v/v, Titratable Acidity: 5.3 g/litre, pH: 3.53.

Food match:
Well matched with wild duck or venison.