Church Road Grand Reserve Hawke's Bay Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Malbec 2021

Church Road Grand Reserve Hawke's Bay Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Malbec 2021This years blend is Cabernet Sauvignon dominant, reflective of a warm dry season which perfectly suited this later ripening variety. Leading with dark, concentrated berry fruit and plum, this is lifted by top notes of fragrant lavender, rosewood and cedar, with a whisp of cacao and vanilla. A savoury dark earthy complexity brings a more serious, brooding undertone to the wine. On the palate the wine is medium full bodied with good mid palate flesh,

This year’s blend is Cabernet Sauvignon dominant, reflective of a warm dry season which perfectly suited this later ripening variety. Leading with dark, concentrated berry fruit and plum, this is lifted by top notes of fragrant lavender, rosewood and cedar, with a whisp of cacao and vanilla. A savoury dark earthy complexity brings a more serious, brooding undertone to the wine. On the palate the wine is medium-full bodied with good mid-palate flesh, finishing with a long, fine tannin structure that will soften with time and ensure good cellaring potential (2028 – 2040).

The Gimblett Vineyards (80%): Very free draining alluvial gravels, this soil type is some of the lowest vigour, lowest nutrient soil in Hawkes Bay, restricting vine growth and water uptake and resulting in meagre crops of intensely flavoured fruit. The area is only 30 M above sea level, and far enough inland to be relatively well protected from the sea breeze, while the gravel soils store the heat of the day, helping to make this one of the warmest areas in the region ideally suited to red winegrowing. This vineyard tends to produce wines with a core of dark fruit and a firm tannin structure that brings length and drive to the blend. Redstone Vineyard (20%): Situated on the warm soils of the renowned Bridge Pa Triangle Winegrowing District, this vineyard is only a three-minute drive from the Gimblett Vineyards but produces a distinctively different wine. The soils here are known as red metals, a 10,000-year-old, free draining, alluvial greywacke gravel riverbed since covered by a shallow layer of windblown loess, including iron rich volcanic ash that has rust stained the soils. It typically produces ripe, supple and aromatic wines, with good mid-palate flesh, that helps to balance the more structural Gimblett Vineyard wines.

2021 was another exceptional year in Hawke’s Bay, with warm, dry, settled weather over most of the season. A significant sustained drought period lasted from mid-summer through until well after harvest was completed, allowing for all fruit to be harvested in optimum condition. A little cooler than 2020, the vintage is characterised by exuberant aromatics and excellent structure, which should see some very long-lived wines. The vines were trained to 2 cane VSP and we employed extensive shoot and fruit thinning, along with bunch positioning, de-clumping, close canopy trimming and 100% removal of leaf through the fruit zone, to ensure a balanced, evenly spaced and well exposed crop. Soil moisture was monitored regularly to regulate a deficit drip irrigation programme. This kept thevines in a functioning yet low vigour state that promoted both ripening and concentration. Approaching harvest time, we visited the blocks every 2 or 3 days, tasting, evaluating flavour and ripeness and checking for condition to ensure we picked at the ideal moment; our aim was to achieve a balance between density, power, freshness and precision in the resulting wines.