by Anto Coates
The Hawke’s Bay leg
of our whirlwind tasting tour around New Zealand’s wine regions is in
the books. John Hancock’s presentation marked a departure from Brian Bicknell’s
Marlborough
tasting in that there was far less attention paid to the specifics of weather
and soil and far more attention paid to Hawke’s Bay place and relevance to the
local and international scene.
John Hancock is one
of the true legends of New Zealand
wine and was arguably the first person in New Zealand to barrel ferment
chardonnay on a commercial level with the 1985 Morton Estate Black Label. He
was also one of the first ‘celebrity’ winemakers,
whose name and signature on the front label was confirmation of
the quality of a given wine. This in spite of the fact that he must have long
since tired of the twitticism: ‘put your John Hancock on that.’
The night was
divided into four flights and one power point presentation. The power point was
care of Hawke’s Bay Wine Growers, but John didn’t care for it so it went the
way of muller thurgau and was pulled out.
Flight one was the
sauvignon blancs, a grape variety that John holds close to his heart (if down
the back of his pants is close to his heart). His enthusiasm for sauvignon is incredibly
underwhelming and he makes no secret that he’s not a sauvignon drinker. But
being the wily customer he is he knows sauvignon is essential to his own
aspirations and so mustered what could almost be construed as a smile over Hawke’s
Bay’s contributions to the national savvy vineyard.
Wine one was the
Trinity Hill Sauvignon Blanc 2010 which was a surprisingly good wine
considering its modest price tag and reputation, with plenty of passionfruit,
feijoa and red capsicum flavours before a brief flirtation with a finish
(18/20). Next up was the current Decanter magazine’s April buy of the month,
the Metis 2009, a joint production of Trinity Hill and Sancerre winemaker
Pascal Jolivet. The wine was less varietally expressive than I remember, but it
had some very nice wild yeast and barrel complexity manifesting in aromas of
wet jersey, passionfruit, nougat and coconut, with perhaps some hot car vinyl
upholstery thrown in (18.5-/20). Wine 3 was a rare treat – the cellar-door only
Facon Traditionelle, a barrel-fermented sauvignon blanc made as a premium
offering for the UK
market. The wine was extremely liberally oaked with bready aromas emanating but
in spite of this it was actually very pretty and had a sort of custard flavour
mixed with lime (18.5/20). Well worth seeking out next time you’re at Trinity
Hill’s spectacular cellar door.
The chardonnay
flight pitted three of the great Hawke’s Bay chardonnays against each other,
but really was an illustration of three different styles: the Clearview Reserve
09 from near the coast at Te Awanga, the Te Mata Elston 09 from the Havelock
Hills, and the Trinity Hill Reserve 09 (formerly known as the Gimblett Gravels).
To say the Clearview is an in-yer-face chardonnay is like saying Charlie Sheen
is colourful. It has a massive following for just this reason and can be the
one safe recommendation when a customer asks for a buttery chardonnay. But by
Clearview standards the 2009 is positively demure – which is to say it's better
than usual, and hence we had it in our Top 30 this Christmas just been. It
still shows the buttered popcorn nose but the palate really expresses
beautifully through orange peel citrus fruits to a rich mealiness that seems to
indicate enthusiastic battonage (lees stirring for the unpretentious) (19/20).
The Elston 2009
(17.5+/20) on the other hand seemed to be going through a closed period and was
a little muted on the nose, though I did manage to coax some licorice and spice
out of it after some air time. The pedigree of the wine was evident through the
lengthy vanillin finish but it looked a little like a replacement hooker
between two world class props on this evening. The Trinity Hill Black Label 09
was excellent with beautiful mandarin and nougat on the nose and showed some
minerality and piquant citrus through the palate to a long finish (19/20). That
John Hancock thinks there are better places than the gravels to grow this wine
looms as an exciting prospect for chardonnay lovers everywhere.
Flight three was
the Bordeaux Blends and again they were well chosen as benchmark wines in their
field: Te Mata Awatea 2009, Craggy Range Te Kahu 2009 and Trinity Hill ‘The
Gimblett’ 2009. All these wines are very near the top of my Friday night to-do
list and it was interesting to see them all next to each other. Awatea 2009 (18.5-/20)
was a wine I rated very highly at the Te Mata Showcase this year, but it didn’t
show quite as well on the night, especially when compared with the sheer power
of the outstanding Trinity Hill ‘The Gimblett’ 2009 (19.5/20). The Awatea was
still classical, being beautifully expressive of cabernet with raspberry but the
09 now makes me think it will be more of an elegant style, rather than the
sheer power of the 2007 vintage. The Gimblett was a darker, more sullen fruit
style, with hints of chocolate and coffee through the rich palate. Our
long-time wine consultant Geoff Kelly proclaimed it as the finest Trinity Hill ‘The
Gimblett’ he’d ever tasted and I’ll happily defer to his vast experience on
that one. The Craggy Range Te Kahu 2009 should not be overlooked here either:
it’s excellent value and a fine example of Hawke’s Bay merlot-dominant Bordeaux
blends, showcasing plum, spice and all things nice to elicit an 18.5-/20 from
my pencil (might have been a hint of that in there as well actually).
John Hancock told
me before the show that the 2009 Hawke’s Bay vintage was better for Bordeaux
varietals than it was for syrah, but on the (albeit preliminary) evidence of
the evening I would say syrah has reached a level of ripeness I haven’t seen in
either the 2007 or 2008 vintages. None of the syrahs on show displayed overt
black pepper, which has until now been the hallmark of Hawke’s Bay Syrah. The
basic Trinity Hill Hawke’s Bay Syrah 2009 is incredible value for the money
(18.5/20). It has pretty florals and almost incredibly no pepper on the nose.
The palate is juicy and sweet, though I did think on a second look that perhaps
there was a little bit of confection/sugar, maybe betraying its humble origins to
a more experienced palate than mine. Thankfully if I’m wrong I’m sure John will
forgive me – since there’s no more left to sell anyway, such has been its
popularity (we have a few bottles left as of this writing).
The Trinity Hill
‘Gimblett Gravels’ Syrah 2009 (19.0-/20) has some attractive funk on the nose,
but speaks clearly on many issues, including (but not limited to) the subjects
of ripe plums and violets. The palate is rich and silky and the tannins are
firm but fair. (I enjoyed it so much that I had a cheeky glass the next day
with my slow-cooked beef lunch and my heavy-handed approach with the cumin
shaker proved prescient.)
Last of all was the
main event, the Homage Syrah 2009 (19.5-/20), which has only been in bottle for
a few months. As expected it came out a touch closed, but after some patience
and coercion, it became the wine that the scriptures had foretold*: brooding,
incredibly silky, not so much as a whiff of pepper, but instead complex spices
that include cinnamon, nutmeg and other things that I was too busy enjoying the
wine to wrack my brains uncovering. The fruit is sweet and dense and the
tannins fine and ripe. The finish might give you time to count to 120, (which
is handy if you’re paying for the bottle in $1 coins).
When asked about
the subject of black pepper in syrah/shiraz, John offered the words of Tim Kirk
at Clonakilla, one of Australia’s finest cool-climate practitioners: "I don’t
want my wines to lead with pepper, but I don’t mind it on the palate.” I for
one can’t wait for the Hawkes Bay Roadshow to see how the 2009 syrahs
are coming along on that front (and for that matter how good the cabernets are
looking).
*Numbers
18:12 perhaps? "All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of
the wheat, the first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the LORD, them
have I given thee.” That wine would have been Homage if it was around.