This an immediately appealing wine with lovely pear and stone fruit aromas accompanied by a touch of spice. The palate is just off dry and offers ripe, orchard fruit flavours with a creamy finish, lovely weight and rich texture.

Grapes for this wine are grown in the Waihopai Valley where clay soils and big diurnal temperature shifts (the difference between the heat in the day and the cool in the night) produce wines with lovely palate weight and pronounced aromatics due to their long ripening period. The vines are shoot thinned (to produce less fruit), crop thinned (to reduce fruit once it has formed) and colour thinned (removal of grapes that haven’t changed colour after veraison) to reduce the overall amount of grapes, develop more concentrated fruit characters and ensure even ripening. 

Most of this blend was gently pressed and the juice run into stainless steel tanks. It was then inoculated with a cultured yeast chosen specifically to enhance the wines aromatic profile. The remaining 10% was pressed straight to barrel and fermented with wild yeast – that’s the yeast that is naturally present on the grapes. Post fermentation, the wines were aged on lees (the sediment from the spent yeast cells) for several months. This gives added flavour, weight and texture.

Food Pairing: Spicy foods such as Thai curries, coconut-based dishes, salmon, pâté, soft young cheeses, creamy pasta, roast pork or ideal just as a delicious glass of wine on its own.