Esk Valley Artisanal Hawke's Bay Syrah 2020

Esk Valley Artisanal Hawke's Bay Syrah 2020French oak Red berries & jam Wood spice Soft & generous "Pristine and elegantly perfumed, the wine shows sweet plum, raspberry, floral and mixed spice aromas, followed by a beautifully rounded palate offering youthful fruit intensity and fine grained tannins. Elegantly composed and expressed with a lengthy succulent finish. At its best: now to 2027" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2022 The wine is medium to deep red, with aromas that showcase the red fruit

• French oak
• Red berries & jam
• Wood spice
• Soft & generous

"Pristine and elegantly perfumed, the wine shows sweet plum, raspberry, floral and mixed spice aromas, followed by a beautifully rounded palate offering youthful fruit intensity and fine-grained tannins. Elegantly composed and expressed with a lengthy succulent finish. At its best: now to 2027" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2022

The wine is medium to deep red, with aromas that showcase the red fruit elements of Hawkes Bay Syrah, including raspberries with undertones of wood spice and pepper. In the mouth the wine is soft and generous with flavours like the nose of red berries and jam, with an underlying acidity providing elegance and length. Delicious as a young wine it will also reward cellaring.

The grapes for this wine were grown in two contrasting Hawkes Bay sites. The free draining stony gravels of Gimblett Road provide the wine with dark fruit notes and a tannic frame while the limestone soils of the Heipipi Vineyard in Bay View adds perfume and complexity. Both these free draining vineyard sites are planted with the Limmer Heritage clone and are aged from 12 to 25 years.

Upon arrival at the winery the individual vineyard parcels were transferred to small 5 tonne open topped concrete fermenters for fermentation with wild vineyard yeasts and 15% whole bunch. Once active the ferments were managed by hand to gently extract colour and tannin. After a period of post fermentation maceration the grapes were gently pressed and transferred to French oak barrels for 17 months ageing in small 228 litre and large format 500 and 600 litre puncheons were utilised. 12% were new.