2024 Duet - Chilled Red
Duet is a play between light and shade.
Here we utilise white wine (light) and red wine (shade) techniques to create a blend that has excellent balance and freshness. Each style highlights the strengths of the other.
A chilled light red perfect for summer.
Intense colour belies the light techniques. A brooding earthy, savoury character with a touch of fresh herbs is followed by blackberry, dark cherry and pepper. A smokiness starts the palate, and black plum, lavender and rosemary take over. A dry, crisp and fresh red wine with a beautiful subtlety of flavour and fine tannin.
Only 1586 bottles produced.
Duet is a play between light and shade.
Here we utilise white wine (light) and red wine (shade) techniques to create a blend that has excellent balance and freshness. Each style highlights the strengths of the other.
A chilled light red perfect for summer.
Intense colour belies the light techniques. A brooding earthy, savoury character with a touch of fresh herbs is followed by blackberry, dark cherry and pepper. A smokiness starts the palate, and black plum, lavender and rosemary take over. A dry, crisp and fresh red wine with a beautiful subtlety of flavour and fine tannin.
Only 1586 bottles produced.
Duet is a play between light and shade.
Here we utilise white wine (light) and red wine (shade) techniques to create a blend that has excellent balance and freshness. Each style highlights the strengths of the other.
A chilled light red perfect for summer.
Intense colour belies the light techniques. A brooding earthy, savoury character with a touch of fresh herbs is followed by blackberry, dark cherry and pepper. A smokiness starts the palate, and black plum, lavender and rosemary take over. A dry, crisp and fresh red wine with a beautiful subtlety of flavour and fine tannin.
Only 1586 bottles produced.
Details
Bridge Pā Syrah – 58%
The organically farmed TK Vineyard has a combination of hot daytime temperatures and relatively warm nights, perfectly suited to ripening Syrah. A free draining sandy loam covers a deep bed of alluvial gravels with interspersed layers of volcanic pumice.
Bridge Pā Merlot – 42%
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.
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 intense colours, amazingly balanced and vibrant fruit characters, while holding on to brilliant texture and acidity.
Winemaking
The Syrah was 80% destemmed and 20% whole bunch fermented, adding a lick of herbaceousness.
The fruit was tipped into an open fermenter and gently hand plunged as it progressed through natural ferment for only 10 days.
It was then pressed to old barrels for malolactic ferment and ageing.
The Merlot was treated like a white wine and pressed directly to old barrels on full solids.
A natural ferment kicked off after a week, and after its completion the wine was topped and allowed to go through MLF.
Both parcels were aged at low temperatures for 3 months then racked and blended to finish ageing in tank together.
No fining or filtration.
Minimal sulphur was added two weeks before bottling.
Alc - 11.5%
Intense colour belies the light techniques. A brooding earthy, savoury character with a touch of fresh herbs is followed by blackberry, dark cherry and pepper.
A smokiness starts the palate, and black plum, lavender and rosemary take over.
A dry, crisp and fresh red wine with a beautiful subtlety of flavour and fine tannin.