First ever Church Road Reserve Syrah

MEDIA RELEASE Wednesday 14th May 2008

First ever Church Road Reserve Syrah welcome addition

Church Road Winery is delighted to announce the release of its first ever Reserve Syrah. This outstanding expression of the variety from the 2006 vintage is a welcome addition to the Church Road Reserve range.

Church Road senior winemaker, Chris Scott, explains that this wine is the culmination of several years of work by the team. "We have made trial batches of Syrah at Church Road since 1998 from a number of different sites before we settled on two growing regions which we believe deliver distinctively different, but complementary wines of the highest quality.”

“Our first ever release of Church Road Reserve Syrah is a synergistic blend of the best of these two terroirs. Redstone Vineyard in the Bridge Pa triangle brings suppleness, flesh and perfume to the blend, while a smaller proportion of Gimblett Gravels delivers structure, and rich, opulent fruit. We firmly believe that careful blending of these two distinct wines is delivering a more complete result than we can achieve from either site in isolation", he says.

“Our vineyard locations on stony, free draining soils in two of the warmest sites in Hawke's Bay are perfectly placed to produce ripe, fleshy Syrah with floral, spice and pepper notes overlaying rich, dark blackberry fruit”.

These perfect conditions for Syrah, coupled with Chris Scott's skill and craft, confidently deliver this exciting New Zealand varietal with all the quality hallmarks you'd expect from Church Road. Syrah is a grape variety that is proving extremely well suited to selected viticultural areas in New Zealand, especially the hotter areas of Hawke’s Bay.

The Church Road Reserve Syrah matches well with most game and red meat dishes.

The Reserve Syrah is the fifth and most recent addition to the multi award winning Church Road Reserve range. Other wines include Church Road Reserve Hawke's Bay Merlot Cabernet, Church Road Reserve Hawke's Bay Chardonnay, Church Road Reserve Hawke's Bay Noble Sémillon and Church Road Reserve Viognier. Tasting notes can be found at www.churchroad.co.nz.

Church Road Reserve Syrah 2006 will be available mid May from selected restaurants, fine wine merchants, selected grocery outlets and from the Church Road Winery Cellar Door. RRP is $33.95.

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