By Anto Coates
New
Zealand now has enough modern wine history that
the top tier producers are starting to become clear. While some come and go
like reality television celebrities, the true players in the upper echelon are distinguishing
themselves by consistent excellence across a broad range of wine styles.
While we’re not quite ready for our version of an 1855
classification, Sacred Hill is undoubtedly one of the 'classed growths'. The Helmsman Cabernet
Merlot is now next-to-impossible to lay your hands on, thanks to its unprecedented
success against the vaunted 2005 Bordeauxs. The Riflemans Chardonnay is an irrepressible
contestant in any and every blind tasting it enters. It continues to deliver
year after year and is perhaps the finest example of terroir in the entire country.
Then there is the success of the Deerstalkers, the Sauvage and the Brokenstone,
which are all showing the pioneering spirit and quality that Sacred Hill is
famous for. It’s fair to say Tony Bish is one of the most fortunate winemakers
(and wine drinkers) in New
Zealand, to have such a diverse range of
wines at his disposal.
It’s not hard to deduce from such a fulsome introduction that
I rather enjoyed the Sacred Hill tasting. The evening was marked by a
particularly vengeful southerly whipping through town, but the assembled
tasters gladly braved the elements. Tony Bish was as always in fine form,
bringing his unique brand of joie de vivre to bear in his trademark stentorian
bass.
The wines were shown in four flights of three: Sauvage,
Riflemans, Brokenstone and Deerstalkers.
Flight one began with the 2008 Sauvage (18.5/20). The wine
showed its directness with a linear structure decorated with florals,
passionfruit and crisp snow peas. There was a hint of barrel complexity which
presented itself to me as masala, but the end result was a steely dry white
wine with bracing minerality and structure. Will be intriguing to see how the
public warms to it this Christmas in our Top 30 (it’s certainly more subtle
than that little sales plug). The 2007 Sauvage (18.5+/20) was starting to get
into its work, showing similar characteristics to the 08 but with even better
integration. The 2005 Sauvage (19.0/20) was my pick of the three and showed the
upwards curve these grown up Sacred Hill Sauvignons take. Developing to a pale
gold colour, it showed delicious feijoa and green beans but with the mellowness
that made it positively ache to get to the table. The room agreed with me, favouring
the 2005.
Flight two was the one I was most anticipating, strictly out
of curiosity for the way the Riflemans vineyard expressed itself across the
vintages (OK so not strictly…I also love Riflemans Chard). The 2009 Riflemans
(19.5/20) is just a cracker of a wine. It has a nougat, coconut and talcum
nose, reminiscent of fine white Burgundy,
maybe Puligny Montrachet, and a complex nuttiness of cashews and carrot cake.
Its 2007 counterpart seemed a little rounder to me, with more of a popcorn
flavour, mixed with lemon curd and hazelnuts. The 2007 Riflemans (19/20) shows
the complex oak hallmarks of the special barrels that Sacred Hill reserves
especially for Riflemans. The 2005 (18.5+/20) was starting to show signs of
peaking in the next year or two, with glorious oak and well integrated
malolactic fermentation.
Flight three: the 2008 Brokenstone (17.0/20) was a bit of a
jump from the elegance of the Riflemans. At first it seemed quite coarse, but
while the wine was obviously young and vibrant, I did still find this wine
somewhat puzzling (as I had at an earlier tasting). Perhaps it was the youth,
but for a wine that is supposed to only differ from the Helmsman in the
percentages of its make up, it certainly failed to fire a bit. The 2007
Brokenstone (18.5+/20) was more what I was expecting, with sweet toasty oak and
a slight mintiness, while the 2005 Brokenstone (17.5+/20) was considerably more
developed, showing a musty St Emilion nose and a beguiling femininity,
reminding me of tastings of St Nesbit wines in the past, such as the 2002.
Flight four was the Deerstalkers and began with the 2008
incarnation (19.0/20). It was a wine that struck me as being pretty in the
glass, a deep red purple. The oak was prominent as would be expected in such a
young wine, and the nose and palate showed great focus and depth of flavour,
including dried meats, black pepper and plum jam. The 2007 Deerstalkers (19.5/20)
was definitely the riper wine and I recalled thinking when I first tasted it (at
an earlier date) that it didn’t taste like Hawke’s Bay at all – it was more
towards a cool climate Australian-style shiraz.
On the second tasting in a formal setting I revised that and concluded that it
hadn’t lost its Hawke’s Bay identity – merely refined it. The palate was all
juicy blackberries and velvety texture (Deerstalkers…velvet…. where’s Raymond
when you need him?). Geoff Kelly believes the 07 Deerstalkers is one of the
best syrahs ever made in this country and I’m rather inclined to agree with
him. The great news is that we have more of it to sell now thanks to a
cancelled export order (a real ‘cancelled export order’ mind you, not the
phantom kind that so many wineries use to justify flogging off wine at cheap
prices). The 2006 Deerstalkers (17.5+/20) was a bit of a come down from the
2007. It had a slight mustiness on the nose, though the fruit was very ripe,
but the major problem was chalky tannins, which to Tony’s credit he picked out
before anyone else had the chance to pipe up.
Such a self-critical attitude is indicative of Tony and
Sacred Hill’s success. They’re never content to tell the Emperor he looks
wonderful in his new threads, and are the first to admit when they don’t get
everything right. But from the evidence on show at Regional, such slip ups are
few and far between.