Homage from a great vintage

2015 Trinity Homage Special $114.99
(RRP $132.99)

If you haven’t tried Homage, you’re probably in good company because quantities are relatively modest of Trinity Hill’s top red, a Syrah first made in 2002 from 100% Syrah grapes grown on the Gimblett Gravels in Hawke’s Bay.

This great Syrah was inspired when its founder, winemaker John Hancock, visited Gerard Jaboulet in Tain l’Hermitage in the northern Rhone Valley, France and met Gerard Jaboulet and his father Louis, who produced the great wine, Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle – one of the great reds of the first half of the 20th Century. Gerard Jaboulet passed away aged 55 in 1997 but his legacy and that of his family live on, strong. 

Hancock was so inspired by the great reds of the Northern Rhone Valley that he returned to the Rhone to work the 1996 harvest at Jaboulet. The hands on experienced cemented his passion for northern Rhone Syrah styles, which was further enhanced when Gerard Jaboulet sent him three clones of Syrah and one of Viognier as a gift from the Hermitage appellation. Hancock had the vine cuttings quarantined and propagated so that he was able to plant them in 2002, alongside Trinity Hill Winery’s first Syrah vines, which were planted in 1995 with cuttings from the neighbouring Stonecroft vineyard.

The winemakers of Homage today are Warren Gibson and Damien Fischer, who will soon release the 2018 vintage of Homage; the first ever to be sealed under screwcap. But that's another story for another day. 

The 2015 Trinity Hill Homage is drinking beautifully now and has another good decade up its elegant sleeve. 

Buy it here.