A new flagship wine from Trinity Hill – from a single vineyard at Gimblett Gravels in Hawke’s Bay, named after the address. Limited Release.
A beautiful luminous lemon-gold in the glass, with greening edges. A complex bouquet – toffee, white flowers, and a zesty grapefruit lift. Still young, it is fleshy, weighty and taut, but bursting with concentrated, ripe golden peach and melon flavours. It tastes like it’s had the full treatment – vibrant, spicy new oak influences are still to the fore; and a luscious texture and rounded creaminess suggest full MLF, and lots of hands-on attention in the barrel. A balanced, linear acidity drives through the dense layers that kept unfolding as the wine opened up after a while in the glass. A few minutes in, a definite candy-apple flavour came through with a spiced, honeyed biscuit note. The ripe sweetness defines the long, lingering finish.
Interesting – this wine omits that flinty, struck-match, reductive influence that many of the top-drawer Hawke’s Bay Chardonnays feature, and has defined a ‘modern’ medal-winning Chardonnay style. It’s tricky to predict how this wine will fare long term, as it’s still a baby – but…I’d suggest it will develop gloriously in the bottle and will be playing it’s best game in 5-6 years time. At $80 RRP, it’s certainly not an everyday wine; and as a limited edition, it’s not something you’ll be able to buy every day either. I do think it’s a belter though – first sip impressions are that it’s a big wine, and it kept delivering through to the last drop.
