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
Hand harvested from select low-yielding vineyard sites in Hawke’s Bay, Church Road Reserve Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon marries ripe, concentrated fruit with spicy oak complexities, to create a complex Bordeaux-style wine with a serious palate structure.
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Released: July 2005
Merlot 46.5%, Cabernet Sauvignon 42%, Malbec 11.5%
Region: 100% Hawke's Bay
A wine of power and elegance, this is an earthy, rich Bordeaux-style wine built around a core of ripe Hawke’s Bay fruit.
Colour: Rich and vibrant red.
Aromas: Dark berry fruit and black cherry characters are complemented by French oak and complexities of liquorice, chocolate and cedar.
Palate: The wine has excellent flesh and concentration, balanced by a backbone of ripe, fine-grained tannins. The finish is long and persistent.
This wine will reward careful cellaring for up to ten years or more. Over this time, the primary berry fruit characters will give way to more complex earth and leather flavour and aroma, while the tannin will continue to soften.
The 2004 harvest period was warm and dry, enabling fruit to reach optimum flavour ripeness with an excellent level of colour and concentration. Fruit was hand harvested and hand sorted off only the lowest vigour vines in each vineyard block.
Winemaker: Tony Prichard, Chris Scott
This wine was made using traditional Bordeaux-based winemaking techniques. After the grapes are crushed, we employ regular pumpovers, punch downs, aeration and long macerations to develop flavour complexity, stabilise colour and to meld the tannins into the wine. We taste daily to monitor progress, and to determine the optimum time to drain the wine off skins.
Alcohol: 14.5% by volume
Total acidity: 5.65 g/L as tartaric
1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002*, 2003, 2004
* currently available vintage(s)
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