150 Church Road,
Taradale,
Hawke's Bay
New Zealand
Ph: +64 6 844 2053
Fax: +64 6 844 3378
info@churchroad.co.nz
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©2006
This is the first Cabernet Sauvignon to be released in the Cuve Series. Cabernet Sauvignon is our latest-ripening grape variety and is notoriously difficult to grow on all but the very best sites. However, on our hottest, stoniest vineyards this grape variety achieves full ripeness and makes wines with an incredible depth of dark, complex flavour, and a classical structure exhibiting a restrained power.
Cuve Series Cabernet Sauvignon will only be made in small quantities in exceptional vintages, to showcase what the world's greatest red grape variety can do in New Zealand's best Bordeaux Red vineyards.
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Release Date: October 2006
Grape Variety: Cabernet Sauvignon 86%, Merlot 14%
Region: Hawke's Bay
Colour: Deep, rich garnet.
Aromas: The wine offers a bouquet of aromas including classic cassis, plum and blackberry fruit, dried currant, liquorice, earth and new leather with an almost violet-like aromatic lift.
Palate: Full-bodied with excellent mid-palate flesh and low acidity. This is balanced by a backbone of fine-grained ripe tannin, giving the wine excellent textural length.
Careful cellaring for six years or more from the vintage date will be rewarded with increased seriousness, complexity and richness. Expect the brighter fruit and violet notes to give way to darker, more complex aromas, while the palate will soften further.
The hallmark of the 2004 vintage was the warm, dry autumn which ensured excellent fruit ripeness and concentration. This wine was harvested off low vigour soils in the Gimblet Gravels district. The lowest vigour, lowest cropping vines in each block were identified for selective hand picking.
Brix at harvest: 23.5° average
Winemakers: Chris Scott and Tony Prichard
Three separate parcels of grapes were crushed into small fermenters and fermented at around 30° C. To extract colour, tannin and flavour from the skins, the caps were punched down and pumped over. Aeration was used during pumpovers to stabilise colour, develop the structure of the wine and to increase the complexity of the aroma and flavour. The wines were tasted daily to determine the optimum drain-off time, and each parcel was drained off skins after about three weeks.
Individual parcels were aged in French oak (of which 55% was new) for 18 months before the blend was put together.
Over recent years, the Church Road winemaking team have continued to develop a style of increased complexity across our wines. An almost French influence is emerging which places greater emphasis on complexity and texture rather than relying simply on fruit and oak for their appeal.
Alcohol: 14% by volume
pH: 3.8
Total acidity: 5.0g/L as tartaric
Residual sugar: Dry
2004*
* currently available vintage(s)
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