World Press pays Homage to elite Hawke’s Bay Wine

For Immediate Release Thursday 5th August 2010

World Press pays Homage to elite Hawke’s Bay Wine.

Media from both sides of the Atlantic are simultaneously applauding a wine which wine enthusiasts across the globe have been salivating over in secret since its release last year.

Recently topping Cuisine Magazine’s July annual Syrah tasting, Trinity Hill’s Homage Syrah 2007 has just appeared on the cover of Decanter Magazine, the British wine bible which is lauded as ‘The World’s Best Wine Magazine’. The Homage illustrates the September 2010 issue’s headline story ‘The Best of New Zealand – the 20 most exciting producers & the stunning wines to prove it’.
Awarded 19.5 points out of 20 alongside top examples from Te Mata Estate, Craggy Range and Esk Valley, the magazine praised Homage’s concentrated “dense, sweet fruit, black pepper, star anise, violet, toast, coffee, blackcurrant and black plum” notes, adding it was “big but supple with impressive potential”.

On the other side of the ocean in the spring 2010 issue of Canada’s Cellier Magazine, the Homage “crushed the competition” at an expert blind tasting of 26 syrahs from France and beyond. According to Cellier, seven of the 10 judges mistook the Homage 2006 for a fine French syrah and named its first-place finish ‘a remarkable feat’. According to the article at the meal that followed, judges heaped still more accolades on the excellent “No. 18” wine – they were only told that the wine was from New Zealand when the magazine hit the stands. Seven of the ten judges mistook the Homage for a fine French example as their reaction to its quality was immediately “glowing and near-unanimous”.

The vines which produce the fruit for Homage are situated in the famed Gimblett Gravels district in Hawke’s Bay; a region which Decanter magazine itself credits for being ‘better known for its generously proportioned reds’. Even the Australians are embracing the elegant, kiwi style of syrah with Trinity Hill’s Gimblett Gravels Syrah 2008 being given a top slot as Australian wine writer Ralph Kyte-Powell’s Wine of the Week column in Melbourne’s The Age last month. Huon Hooke in the Sydney Morning Herald even came out saying “New Zealand is trumping us in our strongest suit” and that “Hawke’s Bay holds the aces”.

It’s not just Trinity Hill’s syrah that’s landing the punches for the Gimblett Gravels, their Bordeaux styles are also out to impress with Trinity Hill’s The Gimblett 2006 making it into Jancis Robinson’s nine fine wines of the week in the UK’s Financial Times. “The Gimblett Gravels section of New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay is clearly magically suited to producing good copies of smart red Bordeaux. In a blind comparative tasting of some of the top kiwi wines with 2005 Bordeaux first growths, the 2006 vintage of this wine was very impressive” she said.

Trinity Hill’s owner John Hancock and executive winemaker Warren Gibson are both overjoyed at the profile their flagship wine is achieving.

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