Estate & Altitude Merlot Tasting Pack

Colour: Ruby red

Nose: Green plum, blackberry, cedar, anise

Palate: Medium weight with juicy satsuma plum, tobacco and earthy notes. Fresh acidity structures the palate adding length and drive, all balanced with fine, gentle tannins.

Vintage Notes: A relatively cool vintage with higher-than-average rainfall. Our Merlot ripened later than normal with below average yields. The long cool ripening period produced wines of intense flavour and fine structure.

Winemaker Notes: The cool and rainy conditions of 2017 have produced an elegant and relatively youthful wine for its age. This wine beautifully combines complexing savoury aged characters with juicy fresh fruit. Will be at its best when served with food that compliments its zippy palate, something like lamb chops, veal or a subtle savoury Ragu. No need for anything to be too heavily flavoured, as this will take away from the gentle earthy tones of this medium bodied wine.

Colour: Deep red

Nose: Mulberry, earth, cinnamon and clove.

Palate: Earthy and plummy fruit with notes of allspice and some light textural
herbaceous notes. This wine has a satisfying "chewy texture" when it opens up with mouthwatering tannins that play in your mouth. 

Vintage Notes: A nicely balanced vintage. A wet winter and cool spring conditions set the vines up for a good crop, with significant soil moisture in reserve. A couple of hot and dry spells over the ripening period ensured the grapes matured evenly. So overall, a warm vintage, but the vines held up nicely and produced some great fruit.  

Winemaker Notes: This wine is compact, concentrated and has some mellow, aged flavours. Its deliciously complex but does take a little while to open up. You could consider a gentle decant or leave a little in the bottle for the next night to get the full impact of this wine. But straight out of the bottling would be fine as well.  Foods with some fat content are your friends here - Beef Wellington, Fillet Mignon or Osso Buco spring to mind. 

Colour: Dark red 

Nose: Boysenberry, menthol, coco and vanilla bean - some dried Italian herbs
underlying it all. 

Palate: A host of lifted red and black fruits framed with savory oak. Superb weight, drive and length.

Vintage Notes: A dry winter and windy spring conditions affected the flowering and budburst, resulting in a low number of bunches / grapes per vine. The ripening period was warm and dry, providing us with concentrated intense flavours and small berries.

Winemaker Notes: Most definitely a crowd pleaser - what’s not to like? It's not every day you find a Merlot with such mid palate drive, length and persistence. Less savoury than the others but chocked full of fruit and oak sweetness. This wine drinks well however you want to drink it, but don't be afraid to pair with some reasonably strong flavours - a good pepper steak, roast beef or a decent cheddar cheese would be delicious. Possibly the wine of the line up? What do you think... 

Colour: Deep red, a few brown notes evident.

Nose: Molasses, Prunes, dark chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla.

Palate: A concentrated and rich wine, with dark plum flavours, vanilla bean and cedar. Great length and persistence in the mouth.

Vintage Notes: This was another very low yielding year. A dry winter and spring, combined with a few erratic storms during flowering, resulted in significantly lower yields.  The ripening season started off very warm, but some cooling rains tempered the ripening, resulting in great flavour development and tannin maturity. The low yields resulted in an amazing intensity of flavour.    

Winemaker Notes: A wine for people who love their deep, dark rich reds or a serious fortified wine. Vintage 2020 was a warm vintage that delivered concentrated, rich and complex wines.  Drink this wine at the end of the night with blue cheese and honey, or a strong cheddar, you won't regret it.

Colour: Dark red 

Nose: Black cherry compote, coffee grinds and vanilla bean. 

Palate: A great line of sweet red currents, blood plum and a morello cherry. Layers of coffee and bitter chocolate give this wine great depth and substance.

Vintage Notes: A slightly wetter winter than the previous two years set the vines up nicely for the year ahead. A little bit of heat late in the year, affected flowering and slightly reduced yields. The ripening period started with an initial spike of heat, but after that, the conditions were cool and mild. This elongated the ripening period has helped produce a complex and beautifully structured Merlot.

Winemaker Notes: The gentle tannin structure and generous fruit of this wine pairs well with “mid weight” meats, like duck, turkey or a fillet steak. Dishes like mushroom gnocchi or a caramelized onion tart would also pair well.  From a cheese point of view, many goat or sheep cheeses would be a good match, as would a mature Comte. A beautifully balanced Merlot that will still give more with a few years of aging.

Colour: Ruby red with a vibrant purple hue.

Nose: Boysenberry and dark plum fruit with notes of caramel, crystallized ginger and clove.

Palate: A juicy, fruit driven wine with fresh vibrant flavours, balanced against a lightly chewy and pleasantly textural palate. Blood plum, mulberries and a savoury, earthy backbone give this wine drive and substance.

Vintage Notes: Good soil moisture and cool conditions resulted in a late fruit set and average yields. Mild but dry conditions during ripening resulted good flavour development, balanced acidity and supple tannins.

Winemaker Notes: An earthy, dark fruited Merlot punctuated with a vein of juicy red fruit. A small proportion of grapes were left on skins for an extended period of time, resulting in a full bodied, textural and mouthfilling wine. This wine would pair well with fillet steak, goats cheese or lamb koftas.