Kiwi magic

Tuesday evening 24/04 I invited a number of customers in to join me and taste a selection of the 2010 Craggy Range Wines from Kiwi Land - and 2010 was great vintage.
We also had a selection of wines from their second label Wild Rock, nine wines in all.
The tasters were gob smacked, many had tried Craggy Range wines before, many had not but the consensus was that there was nothing short of sensational in the line up.  
Below is my pick of the bunch with a brief note on each.

Gimblett Gravel Chardonnay 2010 is a wonderful expression of this variety. Lovely aroma’s stone fruit on the nose, the palate is rich with a nutty, creamy complexity provided by the French oak and lees ageing.
 

Te Muna Road Pinot Noir 2010 from the Martinborough area of NZ consistently produces pinot’s of the highest quality and this is no exception. Spicy, fragrant and smoky on the nose, the palate is full of cherry, plum and earthy flavours. Rounded and silky with a fine tannin backbone and great length, this wine gets better with every sip.

Gimblett Gravel Merlot 2010 86% Merlot and 14% Cabernet Franc. This wine is stunningly elegant. Herbs, berry fruit and plums on the nose, medium bodied but bursting with layers of flavour on palate, spicy and long on the finish. The best Merlot I have tried since the Craggy Range Sophia in Jan ’10.

The Gimblett Gravel Syrah 2010 is one of those Shiraz/Syrah wines that as it opens up creeps up on you and eventually leaves you asking for another glass, just to see if you really got all the flavours. Not a huge wine, a shiraz of elegance and subtlety that builds and builds.
At our tasting I opened this wine at 5pm and had a sip and over the following hours I revisited it a couple of times. By 9.30 pm this wine was diabolically good, opening up into a mouthful of silky satin flowing over the palate loaded with berry fruits, cherry flavours and black pepper. The finish is an extraordinary complex mix of these flavours with a hint of oak.

The Wild Rock Gravel Pit Red 2009 is from the famed Gimblett Gravels area of Hawke’s Bay. This wine is a blend of Merlot and Malbec and at the tasting it proved a big surprise, savoury and spicy, earthy and fruity, peppery and mouth filling.

Cheers for now, Michael@wineseek.