Rich ripe boysenberry, cherry stone, tar, and spice aromas saturate the nose. The palate is awash with ripe red fruits and punchy velvety tannins. This Montepulciano is not for the faint hearted but will excite anyone that’s into big reds. This wine has a long life ahead of it and will certainly be worth cellaring into the coming decades.

The Wrekin Chardonnay

WINEMAKING
The grapes were 100% hand-picked and gently whole bunch pressed. After settling in tank, the juice was racked and inoculated with yeasts from ‘ The Wrekin’ vineyard and then transferred to French barriques- no new oak. In spring, malolactic fermentation occurred naturally. The wine aged for 18 months on lees.


TASTING NOTES
On the nose a complex array of toasted nuts, lees and smokey tones overlay a pure stone fruit white peach with a citrus backbone. On the palate is crisp and pure. The vibrant acidity offers lively structure to the wine’s weight and texture. Citrus pith, stone fruit, and spice leave a long delicate finish.

Winemakers Notes
With this being such a popular varietal these days, we were asked by our local distributor to produce one. As it turns out places like Japan and Canada are also hopping on this fresher, aromatic style. I fermented half in stainless steel tank with a selected organic yeast and the other half as wild ferments in 2 large puncheons. This provided both precision and funkiness making for a really unique expression of this grape.

Vineyard
Hawke's Bay is located on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The region enjoys dry summers with moderate, cool nights. This wine reflects a single vineyard Pinot Gris which was grown in the Eskdale Appellation of Hawke's Bay. The vineyard lies along the Esk River Valley about 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the mouth that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The soils are a combination of silt and loam deposited from the river and heavier deposits at the foot of the Esk Valley Hills. The vineyard has begun its journey into organic farming with no weed sprays and the use of an under- vine mower.

Winemaking
This Pinot Gris was harvested with an average harvest Brix of 20.5 and picked with a fresh acidity to give the finished wine some finesse and keep the alcohol in balance.

We chose to machine harvest the fruit to give the juice time to soak freely on skins for about 6 hours before we pressed. The free-run juice and light pressings were fermented in stainless steel using an organic inoculated yeast and fermented slow and cool to relative dryness. The pressings went into 10 year old French puncheons (500 liter oak) where they fermented wild each with their own hint of sweetness and character left behind.

Commercial description.

In exceptional years our winemakers carefully select the four best barrels of our finest Pinot Noir. Every bottle is one of fewer than 1200 bottles in existence.

Four Barrels Pinot Noir displays generous plum, cherry and ripe berry fruit aromas with a hint of soft spice. The palate is rich and showing layers of silky-smooth dark berry flavours underpinned by subtle notes of dry ‘Provencal’ herbs. A beautifully balanced elegant, lush wine with a lingering finish.

100% Malbec. Handpicked grapes barrel aged in French oak combine to produce a wine of great concentration and finesse. Intense and powerful with aromas and flavours of violets, dark chocolate and treacle. Mouth filling texture with fine structural tannins. Soil, mother nature and respectful winemaking allows us to produce distinctive, single vineyard wines. Cellar to 2035.

Limited edition, individually numbered bottles.

From the winery...

Saorsa. A term to describe a radical sense of freedom that represents our philosophy completely. Our aim is to produce honest and sincere wines that are free to sing their own song and truly express themselves and the sites they are grown. Wines of great balance and texture, using what nature provides? time and thought.

Here at Saorsa Wines we make small production wines by hand in the beautiful Hawke?s Bay. We select specific sites that not only have the greatest attributes for exceptional quality but also a unique individuality that manifests in the wine itself. Production is with the lightest of hands, in a traditional manner using everything the grapes bring with them without industrial manipulation and additives.

About the wine...
Aromatic notes of rose petals and dried herbs layered upon liquorice, smoke and earth. Fresh and lively with a seductive silky finish. Our wines are produced with oxygen exposure and develop greatly once opened. Decanting the wines will allow them to truly express themselves.

Vineyards

A blend of two idyllic hillside sites in Hawke?s Bay. One from the Subregion of Paki Paki a gentle North facing slopes with shallow limestone soils. A slightly more inland area of Hawke?s Bay with long hot days and an abundance of sunlight. The second from the steep sandstone over limestone slopes of Roy?s Hill situated high above the Gimbeltt Gravels stoney soils. This presence of light and heat combined with the natural slope of the sites and cooling winds allows our Syrah to boast both masculine and delicate floral tones.

Home Fields operates from their original vineyard, planted in 1993, plus four additional lease vineyards.  The yield potential is approximately 50 tonnes, the majority of which being Pinot Noir, with several tonnes each of Chardonnay, Syrah and Pinot Gris.

For this wine the Pinot Noir grapes were lightly pressed, separated from skins and fermented to “dry” over ten days. 

Tasting
In the bottle, flavours offer a mix of strawberry with tangerine / grapefruit citrus notes. Tannins and acid lend body to the wine. 

Lush, soft and deeply aromatic aromas of rose petals, lychees and tropical fruit all vie for attention in each glass of this off dry Gew?rztraminer from Nelson - long home to many of the country's best aromatic white wines.