2024 Beautiful Strangers - Orange wine
Skin Contact Blend
Blending varieties is like blending primary colours on a page. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Beautiful Strangers is an aromatic, orange blend of four varieties from two organic Te Matau a Māui vineyards.
These varieties are fermented with skins included, coming together from different sides of the flavour spectrum to make a wild and explosive wine.
Floral, red berry, orange zest and musk. The skin contact has provided light herbal, savoury notes to the nose. Juicy, yet dry at the start, this wine flows into stone fruit and tangy grapefruit with a fresh, saline finish and mild tannin.
Only 1860 bottles produced.
Skin Contact Blend
Blending varieties is like blending primary colours on a page. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Beautiful Strangers is an aromatic, orange blend of four varieties from two organic Te Matau a Māui vineyards.
These varieties are fermented with skins included, coming together from different sides of the flavour spectrum to make a wild and explosive wine.
Floral, red berry, orange zest and musk. The skin contact has provided light herbal, savoury notes to the nose. Juicy, yet dry at the start, this wine flows into stone fruit and tangy grapefruit with a fresh, saline finish and mild tannin.
Only 1860 bottles produced.
Skin Contact Blend
Blending varieties is like blending primary colours on a page. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Beautiful Strangers is an aromatic, orange blend of four varieties from two organic Te Matau a Māui vineyards.
These varieties are fermented with skins included, coming together from different sides of the flavour spectrum to make a wild and explosive wine.
Floral, red berry, orange zest and musk. The skin contact has provided light herbal, savoury notes to the nose. Juicy, yet dry at the start, this wine flows into stone fruit and tangy grapefruit with a fresh, saline finish and mild tannin.
Only 1860 bottles produced.
Details
Vineyards
Mangatahi – 74% of blend
The Mangatahi vineyard sits on ancient river terraces formed by the braided Ngaruroro River.
Planted in 2006, the terraces consist of greywacke stone with a topsoil based of volcanic ash, alluvial gravels and silt loams.
Located inland and between two mountain ranges the organically farmed vineyard benefits from low rainfall, warm days and cool nights.
Raukawa – 26% of blend
Planted in 2003, the organic Paritua vineyard sits on an old riverbed of gently rolling and flat land beneath the limestone rich Raukawa hills.
The soils are made up of free draining “red metal” gravels overlaid by alluvium derived by loess, volcanic ash, greywacke and limestone.
Accompanied by high sunshine hours and low rainfall, this site is perfect for red varieties.
Season
Two cool seasons prior to 2024, coupled with a reasonably wet and cold spring of 2023 led to low bunch numbers and a long flowering period. Small, open bunches and low yields were the result, which isn’t a great thing for the wallet but is amazing for quality.
The rest of the 2024 season was near perfect, with bright, warm days and cool nights producing amazingly balanced and vibrant fruit characters while holding on to brilliant texture and acidity.
Winemaking
47% - Pinot Gris
27% - Chardonnay
26% - Sauvignon
In late February handpicked 809 (Muscat clone) Chardonnay from Mangatahi was destemmed and sent to a small open fermenter to lay on skins with gentle hand plunging, once a day. After 18 days it was pressed to tank to go through malolactic fermentation.
Almost 2 weeks later the Mangatahi Pinot Gris was 100% destemmed, fermented on skins for 17 days before pressing.
Then in mid-March a small amount of Raukawa Sauvignon was destemmed to another fermenter for 10 days of soft extraction before pressing to tank.
Once the Sauvignon had settled in tank for a week, all 3 varieties were blended and sent to large old barrels, where it matured for 3 months at cool temperatures, before being racked to tank for bottling.
No fining or filtration.
Minimal sulphur was added two weeks before bottling.
11.5% Alc
Floral, red berry, orange zest and musk. The skin contact has provided light herbal, savoury notes to the nose.
Juicy, yet dry at the start, this wine flows into stone fruit and tangy grapefruit with a fresh, saline finish.