Esk Valley Artisanal Syrah 2021

The wine is a medium to deep red, its aromas showcasing the red fruit elements of Hawkes Bay Syrah. Flavours of raspberry, wood smoke and pepper are to the fore. The wine is fragrant and elegant with layers of complexity adding interest to the palate. Although delicious as a young wine, it will gain considerable complexity with time in the bottle.

The grapes for this wine were grown in two contrasting vineyard sites. The free draining stony gravels of the Gimblett Gravels provide the wine with dark fruit notes and a tannic frame while the limestone soils of the Heipipi Vineyard in Bay View add perfume and complexity. Both these free draining vineyard sites are planted with the Limmer Heritage clones and are aged from 13 to 26 years of age.

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 with the inclusion of 10% whole clusters. Once active the ferments were managed by hand to gently extract colour and tannin. After a period of post fermentation maceration the ferment was drained and gently pressed and transferred to French oak barrels for malo-lactic fermentation and 18 months ageing.