Vidal Reserve Syrah, Gimblett Gravels

Description

Vidal Reserve Syrah is made from grapes grown in the highly esteemed Gimblett Gravels wine-growing district of the Hawke’s Bay, on New Zealand’s north island. Vidal’s Reserve wines are elegant and characterful with true regional identity.

Vidal Estate was established in 1905 by Anthony Joseph Vidal, a young Spanish immigrant who had arrived in New Zealand in 1888. He spent the years before he founded Vidal working for his uncle Joseph Soler, one of the pioneers of the New Zealand wine industry. Family owned until the 1970’s, Vidal was purchased in 1976 by George Fistonich (who also owns Villa Maria and Te Awa) who has consistently built upon Vidal’s reputation as a quality wine producer ever since.

Vidal Estate is located in Hastings in the Hawke’s Bay region of the North Island and it is here where his first vines were planted. It is here no the original site that the company’s modern, state of the art winery is situated. Vidal source their grapes mainly from Hawke’s Bay, including the world-famous Gimblett Gravels, but they also source grapes for some of their wines from Marlborough for their Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling.

The grapes for the Vidal Reserve Syrah were grown in Vidal’s Omahu Gravels (65%) and Twyford Gravels (35%) Vineyards situated in the heart of the acclaimed Gimblett Gravels grape-growing district. Gimblett Gravels soils are made up of relatively recent alluvial deposits of gravel and varying degrees of silt and sand. Naturally, free-draining and low vigour soils, meticulous vineyard management combined with naturally low yields and “green harvesting” has resulted in good fruit concentration balanced with fresh natural acidity, typical of our region and wines.

Individual vineyard parcels were harvested, de-stemmed, lightly crushed and fermented as small batches in open-top fermenters. During ferment, the batches were gently plunged and pumped over on skins to extract desirable tannin, flavour and colour. The wines were then pressed off and run to French oak barrels where they completed malolactic fermentation. After resting in barrel for 17 months (30 % new and balanced seasoned), the batches were lightly egg white fined, naturally settled, blended and gently filtered before bottling. 100% Syrah.

Vidal Estate is dedicated to environmentally friendly wine-making and sustainable wine-growing practices.