Winemakers across New Zealand can be adventurous. They explore new grape varieties, new wine styles and new directions with enthusiasm, and, it has to be said, with mixed results.Cuisine’s tasting panel looked at a cross-section of these red wines, predominantly from the difficult 2011 and 2012 vintages, and the results were disappointing. One wine stood out though, an example of the oft-maligned malbec grape, produced in Hawke’s Bay.
This deeply coloured malbec displays characters true to the malbec grape variety. Dark fruit, spice, talc and sarsaparilla (similar to root beer) aromas give interest on the nose, and the palate is solidly built, with sustained ripe flavours, good depth and dry tannins in support.