Bright floral notes and orange blossom dominate on first breath. Hints of cinnamon toast, brioche and lemon meringue pie develop on the nose as the wine opens up with some air. The front palate is fresh with a soft, supple attack on the cheeks and a racing, spicy mid-palate melting into a chalky, tangy finish screaming for bold food pairings.

This fruit was grown on a vineyard situated just off of Maraekakaho Road in the heart of the Bridge Pa Wine Growing District of Hawke’s Bay. Hawke’s Bay lies on the east coast of the North Island and consistently enjoys more sunlight hours and dry weather than the whole of New Zealand. The fruit was cropped specifically to make a 100% varietal Viognier with only one bunch per shoot, giving great fruit intensity. The fruit was machine harvested just before a brief rain spell in mid March in the perfect window of clean, crisp fruit with optimal ripeness and intense floral notes crucial to Viognier. The vineyard is in transition to organic. No weed sprays were used and stress irrigation was trialed resulting in very intense fruit.

The fruit was deemed fairly rich before picking and the juice sat for only 1 hour on skins before being pressed. After pressing the free run and light press juice was put to tank and chilled to settle out the heavy solids. The hard pressings were sent to a separate tank, treated separately and fermented on its own. Both portions were fermented with an organic, selected yeast and maintained at a temperature from 14 to 16 degrees Celsius over the course of 16 days. After protein and cold settling the two portions were blended back together for 6 weeks in tank, then cold through chilling and protein stabilized with bentonite the finished wine was pad filtered and bottled under screw cap to maintain its excellent freshness and floral aromas.