Church Road Tom Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2018, Hawkes Bay
An opaque appearance with a core of dark purple and black red leading to a dark ruby-hued rim. The bouquet is complex, broody, packed with aromas of dark berries and iron, baked earth and roasted bell-pepper. A suggestion of fresh cigar tobacco and hay soon fade in favour of dark violet and velvet rose. Youthful, complex and very inviting. On the palate - salivating and fine, a core of fruit and wood flavours, spices and toasty barrel flavours. The core of fruit leads with blackberry and dark plum, some boysenberry and spice cupboard flavours fuse together on the palate. Dry, weighty and very youthful, an abundance of velvet textured tannins and acidity provide foundation and power. Drinkable today, but will age well offering the best window for enjoyment from 2025 through 2040+. Decant for service.
97 Points
Outstanding
Bottle # 3283 tasted
About this wine’s origins:
VINEYARD - Redstone Vineyard (86%)
Situated on the warm soils of the renowned Bridge Pa Triangle Winegrowing District, this vineyard is only a three minute drive from the Gimblett Vineyard, but produces a distinctively different wine. The soils here are known as red metals, a 10,000 year old, free draining, alluvial greywacke gravel riverbed since covered by a shallow layer of wind-blown loess, including iron rich volcanic ash that has rust stained the soils. It typically produces ripe, supple and aromatic wines that balance the more structural Gimblett Vineyard wines.
Gimblett Vineyard (14%)
Very free draining alluvial gravels, this soil type is the lowest vigour, lowest nutrient soil in Hawke’s Bay, restricting vine vigour and resulting in small crops of intensely flavoured fruit. The area is only 30m above sea level, but far enough inland to be relatively well protected from the sea breeze, the vineyard is also sheltered from the cold southerly by Roys Hill. This vineyard typically produces darkly fruited, structural wines that respond well to cellaring.
VITICULTURE
The 2018 growing season was one of the warmest on record and has produced ripe wines with supple tannins and beautiful fragrance. Some rainfall over the harvest period made careful fruit selection vital for the top wines. Dry weather prevailed over the latter part of the harvest and the later ripening Cabernet Sauvignon grape benefited greatly from this reprieve and was the star variety of the vintage. Most of the fruit was trained to one cane VSP and rigorous crop thinning, bunch placement and intensive canopy management were employed to ensure the best possible fruit quality. Approaching harvest time, we visit the block every two or three days, tasting, evaluating flavour and ripeness and checking for condition with one eye fixed firmly on the weather forecast, to ensure every parcel is harvested at the optimum moment.
WINEMAKING
Selectively harvested in separate parcels, the fruit was then destemmed and crushed for fermentation. The fruit was immediately inoculated with a selected yeast strain. Fermentation was allowed to peak at 34 deg C ensuring good extraction of colour and ripe tannin. Each was tasted daily post fermentation to determine cap management, aeration requirements and to determine the optimum time to press off skins. Extended macerations are generally very positive on such high-quality fruit, and each tank had a total of three to five weeks on skins. Regular aeration during this time helps to stabilise colour, increase age-worthiness, integrate the tannin, while downplaying leafier notes and accentuating ripe fruit, floral and spice aromas. The wine was then drained and pressed before filling to French oak barriques (40% new) to complete malolactic fermentation and subsequent maturation for 27 months. The final blend was decided only after a rigorous barrel selection tasting of our very best components. The wine was racked for clarity, very lightly egg white fined, and bottled without cold stabilisation or filtration.
Cepage: 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot
Alc 13% v/v | TA 5.3g/L | pH 3.9 | RS 2g/L