Hawke's Bay

This deep ruby, complex dry, spicy red comes from Elephant Hill Winery, which has its headquarters on the beautiful coast at Te Awanga in Hawke's Bay. 

Classical Hawke's Bay take on Bordeaux using 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Cabernet Franc, 21% Merlot, 7% Melbec

A complex aroma of berry fruits, spice, cassis, cedar and cigarbox notes, complemented by fine oak.

Sweet rounded berry-fruit flavours of blackberry and wild brambles, mocha, spice, savoury olive notes and fine oak tannin. This wine shows a complex bouquet, silken texture and firm structure. 

Trademark wines are only made in a good vintage, with fairly small print runs.  They're drinkers and keepers.  Made from 100% Hawke's Bay gold.

Ripe fruit from three of our Trademark Syrah vineyards planted on limestone hillsides and an old riverbed. It shows admirable ripeness and depth of flavour, retaining vibrancy and great complexity on the nose and palate with typical violet, spice, black cherry and subtle white pepper notes. Supple chalky tannins provide a structure that promise time in bottle will be rewarded.

The Elspeth range is Mills Reef's top tier line of wines, made from their own vineyards in the Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay.

"This distinguished single vineyard Chardonnay exudes presence and finesse. The palate is wonderfully mouth-filling and creamy, with intense peach and apricot flavours in harmony with fine French oak seasoning, leading to a satisfyingly long soft and spicy finish. Instantly appealing, enjoy now or allow to age gracefully with careful cellaring." - Winemaker's notes.

The 2019 Zen is the best vintage yet produced of this outstanding full bodied, nutty, creamy, new world take on one of the great classic wines of the world. 

Tony Bish is Hawke's Bay best known, most dedicated Chardonnay specialist and Zen is his top wine. He has forged a name for himself as Hawke's Bay's king of Chardonnay and he named Zen after a challenging year because he felt zen when making it. The grapes all come from the highly rated Skeetfield Vineyard in the Bay and the wine was aged in a Taransaud oak ovum, a large egg shaped fermentation vessel, which was made specially for Tony, to create a full bodied, elegant, smooth Chardonnay in an environment that optimises lees contact during winemaking. 

This vibrant, aromatic wine has flavours of gooseberry and limes, with a lively finish. We love to drink it with seafood and pasta dishes and delicious summer salads. No cellaring required.

Rays Road is Kumeu River’s new vineyard site in Hawkes Bay, planted on limestone soils at 180 metres above sea level, with a northerly aspect. The vineyard is dry farmed and this Chardonnay is made from 100% hand picked grapes, whole bunch pressed then fermented with wild yeasts in older French oak barrels. The result is a wine with  approachable and complex flavours, full of zesty citrus notes with a background minerality. On the palate, barrel maturation and malolactic fermentation has given this wine a richness and textural quality which is backed up by the wine’s great acidity, which provides it with good aging potential.

Kumeu River Wines began life as San Marino Wines in 1944 when Croatian immigrant couple, Mick and Katé Brajkovich, bought a small property with a vineyard on it. Their descendents now own and run Kumeu River Wines, which produces 250,000 bottles of wine annually from its owns 30 hectares of vineyards in Kumeu and from another 10 hectares, owned by local grape growers. 

Deliciously smooth, textural Pinot Gris made with grapes grown in Hawke's Bay. All grapes were destemmed and fermented in amphora (clay vessels) from Spain with gentle hand plunging followed by 15 days of skin maceration to derive colour and flavoursome depth in the wine. The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Winemaker Tony Prichard founded the De La Terre winery with his partner in life and in wine, Kaye Prichard and he began his winemaking career over three decades ago, which has given him extensive experience with red and white winemaking in Hawke?s Bay. He forged his early winemaking career with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, so this wine is a little like coming full circle since he can apply the experience he learned with those varieties to make a full bodied, silky, spicy Syrah, which tastes impressively deep and velvety with its dark fruit flavours. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered to retain maximum concentration. 

This smooth, full bodied Syrah drinks well now and will evolve beautifully for up to a decade, probably a lot longer.

Barrel fermented Syrah with ripe black fleshy plum flavours, hints of baking spice (notes of cinnamon, ginger and cardamon) and a long, structured but smooth finish with ripe tannins and dry flavours. This wine is the jewel in Mission Estate's Syrah crown and is made from 100% Gimblett Gravels grapes. 

This Syrah shows dark fruit with a touch of cracked pepper and soft, approachable tannins on the palate. This wine is supple and well balanced, and will continue to develop for 4-6 years in the cellar.

An exceptional dry, full bodied, smooth and complex red from a great vintage, 2020, in Hawke's Bay. This blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and  Cabernet Franc is made from hand picked grapes and it massively over delivers on taste, complexity and its incredible depth of flavour from spending 18 months ageing in French oak. The flavours are outrageously good in this lovely red. 

Impressive full bodied red made with 100% Gimblett Gravels grown grapes. The dark colour and blackberry, blackcurrant and plum flavours come from a blend led by 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc and 15% Merlot. The winemaker is Paul Mooney - long term winemaker at Mission Estate - and he gave the finished wine 12 months of maturation in French oak, 60% new. Not that you'd know it. This beautifully balanced blend works superbly with this relatively high portion of new oak and tastes smooth, dark and impressively complex. Drinking beautifully now and can age superbly for up to a decade.

Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon combine in this outstanding full bodied dry and powerful blend, which is made from hand picked grapes grown in the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowing District’s Cornerstone and Ngakirikiri vineyards. 

The grapes were fermented with wild yeasts, which provides diverse depth and flavours to the wine, which has flavour notes of black olives, dried herbs and black currant notes. The wine was aged in French oak for 20 months and bottled unfiltered, which accentuates its gritty, smooth, powerful cedar notes.

Here is a wine for the long term cellar... Or decant and enjoy now.