• French oak
• Dark cherry & plum
• Vanilla & spice
• Smooth tannins

"Lovely big style Merlot; dark coloured with a little oak and tannin salted in. Still young after a year of course but there’s plenty of warm, generous fruit to ease out over the next few months and offer fine dinner-time drinking for Christmas 2023 and over the three years to follow.Very nice; very promising" Peter Saunders Review 2023

"Sweetly fruited and nicely fragrant on the nose showing dark cherry, plum, floral, thyme and mixed spice aromas, leading to a beautifully rounded palate that's juicy and smooth. It's supple and fruit expressive with a lingering silky finish. At its best: now to 2026" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2023

Toi Toi's 2022 Hawkes Bay Merlot is multi-faceted delight. Its rich ruby-red colour and layered flavours of ripe blackberry and currant are softy underscored by captivating hints of vanilla and oak. The wine's acidity balances these fruit notes, giving it a bright and lively character. Smooth tannins and a long, slightly spicy finish complete this satisfying wine.

Hawke's Bay witnessed a challenging growing season in 2022. An early spring frost impacted some vines, but excellent flowering gave hope. Still, the unsettled weather, with many rain events, continued right through to harvest. Even with these less-than-ideal conditions, the fruit performed surprisingly well. The resulting wines are generally more elegant and restrained than what's usually expected from Hawke’s Bay.

The fruit for this wine was grown on warm inland vineyard sites on Ohiti Road and the Bridge Pa area of Hawke’s Bay. Soils on these sites are alluvial, stoney and free draining, perfect for producing high quality fruit. The canopies were trained using vertical shoot positioning with cane and spur pruning. Fruit thinning was undertaken prior to veraison to ensure crop loads were well balanced contributing to intense flavour development and maturity.

The grapes were gently crushed, allowing some whole berries to remain intact, the must was then transferred into open and closed-top fermenters for a 4-day cold soak. Inoculated with specially chosen yeast to enhance varietal character fermentation proceeded with twice-daily aerated pump over of the cap for colour, flavour, and fine tannin extraction. Malolactic fermentation followed pressing to enhance texture. The wine was aged, for 11 months, in a combination of stainless-steel tanks and French oak barriques. Following blending, the wine was lightly fined to enhance its vibrant fruit flavours, complexity, and intensity.

From snow capped mountains to endless coastline, our native Toi Toi expresses itself distinctively across New Zealand. This adaptability is the inspiration for our wines - crafted from New Zealand’s best grape growing regions. Proudly family owned and sustainably produced – protecting our lands for future generations.