Community Tasting Notes 2

• HowardNZ Likes this wine: 89 points

  May 28, 2016 - Two years on from my previous note, very similar impressions. Under cork this wine is still fairly young seeming. It's purple red with a very polished, dark fruited nose with a whiff of vanillin oak. It's also polished and satiny on palate with largely dark fruit flavours with hints of high cocoa chocolate and that oak. The fruit is quite ripe, voluptuous and sweet but with some umami flecks on the finish. It seems more New World than Bordeaux in aspiration. It has decent fruit weight but lacks nuance and detail. No hurry needed to drink this wine.

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• HowardNZ Likes this wine: 89 points

  August 7, 2014 - Drunk over three evenings. This wine was highly regarded in New Zealand on release, with a number of awards. Colour deep red purple. A pleasant, ripe nose of crème de cassis and spicy plums with a little black pepper, cedar and dark chocolate. A little subdued. Thoroughly ripe on palate too. Fresh and refreshing, with quite primary dark fruit flavours - dark plums, blackberries, dark cherries - and cassis, with a hint of chalky minerality. No secondary development yet. A nice silky texture, with smooth, fine grained tannins. Good acid balance. Drinking best after two days open, so decant thoroughly. A good, well made wine, in the modern style, but ultimately not the dry extract, depth or complexity of a classed growth Bordeaux. In its drinking window now but I'd confidently hold this wine for 10+ years.

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Wine Definition

• Vintage 2005
• Type Red
• Producer Church Road
• Varietal Red Bordeaux Blend
• Designation Cabernet Merlot Reserve
• Vineyard n/a
• Country New Zealand
• Region North Island
• SubRegion Hawke's Bay
• Appellation Hawke's Bay

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 0 (0%)
• In Cellars 18 (86%)
• Consumed 3 (14%)

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