Awatea Cabernets/Merlot, Hawke’s Bay — 2021
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Introduction
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WINERY Established in 1896, Te Mata Estate remains family owned, producing internationally recognized wines exclusively from its Hawke’s Bay vineyards, located on New Zealand’s North Island. Te Mata Estate is home to New Zealand’s oldest vineyards and wine cellars with over 125 years of continuous wine production.
WINE First made in 1982, Awatea continues to represent the best of the classic Hawke’s Bay Cabernet/Merlot blend. Floral aromas with intense blackberry, currant, and dark plum flavours lead to a rich, supple palate with a sustained finish. Awatea takes its name from the historic ship SS Awatea (a Maori word meaning “Eye of the Dawn”) that sailed the Auckland – Sydney – Wellington route in the late 1930s. The Awatea was requisitioned as a troop transport in WWII and was sunk off Algeria in 1942.
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Vineyard Profile
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The grapes for the 2021 Awatea were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between March 9 and 29, 2021.
- Appellation: Hawke's Bay
- Location: New Zealand
- Cultivation: Sustainable
- Vine Age: 30+ year old vines
- Soil: Silty loam top soil with red gravel and iron deposits underneath; well draining
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Vintage Report
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The earliest harvest on record at Te Mata was warm and dry, produced low crops with tiny berries, creating exceptional wines with fragrance, tension, purity, power, and persistence… these are so appealing, the tricky part will be having the patience to enjoy them at their peak!
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Vinification
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The separate parcels of grapes were destemmed before a traditional warm-plunged fermentation and extended maceration on skins. The resulting wines were then run to new and seasoned French oak barrels for 17 months. Throughout this time, they were regularly topped and racked. The separate wines were blended in December 2021, then returned to barrel for their second winter. The finished wine was then egg white fined and bottled in November 2022.
- Aging: 30% new oak
- Barrel Aging: 17 months in a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barrels
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Technical Information
- Varietal Composition: 50% cabernet sauvignon, 36% merlot and 14% cabernet franc
- Alcohol: 13.5%
- TA: 5.7 g/L
- p H: 3.53
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Tasting Notes
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A deep brilliant crimson with an underlying amethyst hue, immediately offers up concentrated blackcurrant, blackberry, dark plum, cocoa-powder and cedar with a subtle marine note in the background. The ripe dark and red fruit is fresh and varietally defined, enlivening the wine with layers of brightness, persistence and appeal. This depth of fruit, balanced by the bright, ripe, acid tension, carries right through to its fine dry finish.
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Images
Reviews
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Awatea Cabernets/Merlot, Hawke’s Bay — 2021 – Wine Advocate – 96 Points
"The 2021 Awatea Cabernets Merlot is dusty and chalky aromatically, with lavender and crushed rocks, pouch tobacco and a sheet or two of nori. The wine feels fleshy despite that, and this brings a pleasurable see-saw of savory and succulent. This is an excellent wine and perfumed to the extreme."
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Awatea Cabernets/Merlot, Hawke’s Bay — 2021 – Wine Advocate – 96 Points
"The 2021 Awatea Cabernets-Merlot is a thrilling wine and a worthy entree to the Coleraine—one of the Southern Hemisphere's best Cabernet blends. You get red fruits, savory exoticism, enoki mushroom, bay leaf, black tea leaves, pastrami, cassis bramble, red apple skins, tobacco leaf, vanilla pod, salted heirloom tomato, blackcurrant, flowers and delicate nuances of umami in profusion, along with crushed oyster shell, tea tree and native rosemary. It's bloody gorgeous. A sensational wine, it has detail, nuance and line, and it's very long and placid but precise."