• French oak
• Ripe plum & cherry
• Woodsmoke & spice
• Succulent & powerful

"A blend of malbec, merlot and cabernet franc. Dense, rich wine with obvious malbec influence adding weight and mouthfeel to the wine. Nicely layered with dark fruits, pepper, spice, woodsmoke, leather and cigar box flavours. A big and youthful wine that promises to age well in the bottle. 2018–2028" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Nov 2018

"Every bit as impressive and slick as the 2015, this has a beautifully seductive, dark-fruited nose with attractive earthy and spicy complexity. There’s a succulent, elegantly powerful and seamlessly delivered array of ripe plums, mulberries and blueberries on the palate. A malbec, merlot and cabernet franc. Good aging potential" James Suckling’s Top 100 NZ wines of 2018

This is a handcrafted wine with much effort made to produce a wine that is a true expression of its site. The wine is deeply coloured and full of primary black fruits, including cherry and blackberry. As a young wine, French oak notes complement the fruit, but with time, complexity and vineyard nuances will predominate. This wine has been sealed with a screw cap to guarantee the quality of each bottle and offer even greater cellaring potential. Decanting of this wine is recommended as the winemaking techniques used may a natural deposit.

The Terraces Vineyard is perched on the steep north -west orientated hillside above the Esk Valley winery near Bay View in the North of Hawkes Bay. This sunny, sheltered site was originally planted in the 1940s and re-established with its current plantings in 1989. It occupies approximately one hectare and is planted with Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Franc which are harvested and fermented together as a field blend and true expression of the vineyard. The soils are complex with low fertility, containing layers of seashell and limestone, interspersed with clay and volcanic ash. The vines are spur-pruned, thinned to one bunch per shoot and hand harvested.

This wine is fermented as a vineyard blend with the individual plots of Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Franc being harvested and processed together. The grapes were hand harvested, sorted and destemmed to a single 80 year-old concrete vat for fermentation. Hand plunging was employed for cap management. The finished wine was aged in 50% new French oak barriques for 17 months and bottled unfined and unfiltered.