Church Road Reserve Merlot Cabernet

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Church Road Reserve

Hawke's Bay Merlot Cabernet 2001

Crafted from select low-yielding vineyard sites in Hawke's Bay, Church Road Reserve Merlot Cabernet marries ripe, concentrated fruit with spicy oak complexities to create a complex Bordeaux-style wine with exquisite palate structure.

Winemaker's Notes

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Released: August 2004
Variety: 54% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Cabernet Franc, 5% Malbec
Region: 100% Hawke's Bay

Description

A wine of power and elegance, this earthy, rich Bordeaux-style wine has been crafted with a New Zealand signature.

Colour: Rich and vibrant red.

Aromas: Dark berry fruit characters are complemented by spicy French oak and the development of licorice and cigar-box complexities.

Palate: Ripe fruit and a backbone of fine-grained tannins are balanced by soft acidity and an attractive, fleshy mid-palate. The finish is long and persistent.

Recommended Cellaring

This wine will reward careful cellaring for up to ten years or more. Over this time the primary berry fruit characters will diminish and be replaced by more complex and earthy flavours and aromas. Colour evolution will accompany these changes.

Harvest

2001 was a very good vintage for specific red wine sites in Hawke's Bay. With heat levels approximately 7% above the 30-year average and rainfall 35% below, we achieved ripe sugars with low acidity and excellent concentration of flavour, colour and tannin.

Brix at harvest: 22.5-24.0°

Winemaking

Winemaker: Tony Prichard

This wine was made using traditional Bordeaux-based winemaking techniques. These techniques emphasise complexity, tannin structure and soft acidity. Specifically, techniques of extended maceration, delestage and aeration are used develop complexity and evolve palate structure.

The wine remained in French oak barrels (70% new, 30% one-year old) for approximately 16 months to extract oak flavour, stabilise colour and evolve the tannins. Barrels were racked-and-returned every three months to enhance evolution of the wine.

The key to this wine is selecting very ripe fruit from low-yielding vineyard sites to produce rich flavours with strong concentration and structure. Traditional Bordeaux winemaking techniques then direct the style toward a complex wine that will continue to develop slowly and gracefully with time in the bottle.

Analysis

Alcohol: 13.5% by volume
Total acidity: 5.6 g/L as tartaric

Vintages

1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002*, 2003, 2004

* currently available vintage(s)

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