Trinity Hill races up the Trade Charts and earns high praise

Trinity Hill races up the Trade Charts and earns high praise from the UK.

A major survey conducted by Wine Business Solutions in Australia has revealed that four New Zealand brands feature in the Top 30 On-Premise brands in the United Kingdom for 2010. Hawke’s Bay’s Trinity Hill Wines ranks an impressive 20th on this list behind the Cloudy Bay phenomenon which sits at number 1 out of the 4400 brands identified in the UK’s on-premise trade.

When the Top 20 New Zealand Wine Brands were ranked in terms of their share of the category Trinity Hill ranked third-equal at a healthy 3.9% share. In fact the top 20 NZ brands have 51% of the total NZ on-premise listings. The Wine Business Solutions survey also reported that despite oversupply pressure, New Zealand had actually managed to lift its average On-Premise prices.

“New Zealand producers must be thrilled that one of their most expensive brands is also the most listed wine in the UK,” states the report. “New Zealand brands made up four of the top 30 On-Premise brands in the UK. The success of Trinity Hill is a great tribute to the hard work of John Hancock who for years has fought to put Hawke’s Bay on the world wine map”.

“We have seen significant progress this year both in terms of sales volumes and brand recognition” says Hancock. “There is no doubt that fantastic independent endorsement both from media and wine shows has helped with brand recognition and sales. This has been our most successful year ever in terms of endorsement.” Trinity Hill’s winemaking team, headed by Warren Gibson, is consistently focused on with great quality grapes being provided by their vineyard team from excellent vineyard sites.

Internationally respected wine critic Jancis Robinson MW recently praised Trinity Hill in her series of Festive Wines in the UK’s Financial Times. Highlighting her “favourite reds for current drinking,” she had this to say about the Trinity Hill, Gimblett Gravels Syrah 2008; “Some fruit from the much more expensive Homage bottling went into this New Zealander. Silky and polished with lovely toasty ripeness”.

This very same wine, along with Trinity Hill’s flagship Bordeaux-style red, The Gimblett, were selected by internationally respected wine critic Andrew Caillard MW, to be part of the inaugural Annual Vintage Selection of 12 Gimblett Gravels red wines from the 2008 vintage. At just 800ha, the Gimblett Gravels is relatively small in size but large in stature. Defined by deep stony free-draining soils within inland Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, it enjoys a warm maritime climate and an enviable reputation for producing stunning world-class Bordeaux varietal reds and Syrah.

Conveying this message globally was succinctly executed through milestone Taupo and London master-classes, leading Gimblett Gravels to be proclaimed by distinguished wine commentators James Halliday as “not just a special site, it is a sacred site”, and Jancis Robinson saying “... everyone admitted it was by no means blindingly obvious where each wine came from and I think we all learnt just how serious a challenger Gimblett Gravels in Hawke’s Bay can be”.

The Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers Association, of which Trinity Hill is a member, plans to continue building on their international success with the Annual Vintage Selection to be sent out, early in the New Year to key wine media and influencers around the world. Chairman Nick Aleksich adds, “Our aim is that the Annual Vintage Selection will help provide a snapshot as to where Gimblett Gravels wines stand in any given year and will help chart the evolution and progression of our wines from this unique terroir”. Unique terroir that has helped instigate Trinity Hill as a premium producer of superior quality wines from Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.

“The upside that we look for now” adds Hancock “is an improvement in the international economy that’ll see improved margins for us as producers, so that we can in turn, pass some of this on to our growers with better grape prices. There is no doubt that this has been a trying couple of years, but we are stronger now than we have been for some time and we look to build on that later next year as we see the various underperforming economies show some recovery.”

ENDS

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