150 Church Road,
Taradale,
Hawke's Bay
New Zealand
Ph: +64 6 844 2053
Fax: +64 6 844 3378
info@churchroad.co.nz
©2006
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Our award-winning Church Road Reserve wines are produced only in outstanding vintages. These premium wines are made from carefully selected grapes and crafted using traditional Bordeaux winemaking techniques.
The Reserve Chardonnay is a selection of our very best Chardonnay blocks, hand-harvested and sorted directly off the vine, then whole-bunch-pressed straight to our best French oak barrels where it is fermented using wild yeasts. The wine is matured in barrel for 14 months with full yeast lees contact before racking and blending the following winter. A core of ripe peach, grapefruit, fig and hazelnut is overlaid with a mealy complexity from yeast lees contact and savoury, integrated oak. The palate is rich and full, but with a seam of minerality that adds length and balance. The 2007 release is possibly our best wine yet under this label from the best Hawke’s Bay vintage in the last 10 years.
- The 2006 vintage of this wine was awarded the Champion Wine of the Show trophy and New Zealand Champion Chardonnay trophy at the 2008 New Zealand International Wine Show.
Vintages: 1991-1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Deep, rich red in colour, this is a supple, medium to full-bodied red wine full of fragrant fruit. On the nose, a core of dark berry fruit is overlaid with fragrant violet and spice characters, whilst subtle, savoury oak adds complexity and a chocolate richness. The palate is full and supple with soft, ripe tannins and good length of both texture
and flavour.
- The 2007 vintage was awarded the Air New Zealand Champion Wine of the Show trophy and Champion Syrah trophy at the 2008 Air New Zealand Wine Awards.
"We have very high expectations for this wine especially as it is from the stellar 2007 vintage. The Bordeaux blend is one of the most challenging and exciting wine styles to produce. There is a synergy between Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot that, when blended sensitively, produces arguably the most complete, complex, fragrant and satisfying style of red wine in the world. A small amount of Cabernet Franc brings fragrance and textural length to the wine." Chris Scott, Winemaker
Vintages: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
This sweet wine is a true French Sauternes-style Noble Sémillon with a distinctive New Zealand signature. Rich and intensely concentrated, it has been crafted from fully botrytised grapes from our Korokipo vineyard in Hawke's Bay. The key to this wine lies in the strict observance of traditional French Sauternes techniques, including individual berry selection and full barrel fermentation in new French oak.
Vintages: 1997, 1999, 2002, 2004
Condrieu, a small appellation in France’s Northern Rhone Valley, is the home of the Viognier grape. We have looked to the benchmark wines of this region to understand what makes Viognier so unique and distinctive. The extremely warm summer saw the grapes for this wine harvested at full flavour ripeness with lower sugar levels than normal, giving us much better alcohol balance and probably the best Viognier we have yet made. On the nose, the wine shows opulent honeysuckle, dried apricot and spice, with subtle complexity coming from fermentation in French oak barriques. The palate is full-bodied with great mid-palate concentration and a length of flavour that echoes the aromatics. Malolactic fermentation adds textural interest and a softer acid structure.
Viognier is a fairly new variety for Hawke’s Bay and we have been progressively
learning more about this exiting, new, full-bodied, aromatic white grape since our first harvest in 2004. Whilst we had been targeting a dry style, we noticed that the variety had a good propensity to develop ‘noble rot’ late in the season, once the fruit was very ripe. The term noble rot describes fruit that has been infected by botrytis, causing it to shrivel up, concentrating the sugars and flavours in the grape. The typical strong apricot, citrus and floral aromas of the variety are present, along with honeyed and slightly nutty notes that come from the botrytis itself.
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