Puriri Hills Harmonie du Soir 2014 Clevedon New Zealand 750ml

Puriri Hills Harmonie Du Soir (previously Reserve) is a designated Regional Super Classic that builds its reputation on being elegant, delicious and consistently ageworthy.  Puriri Hills wines are released five to eight years after vintage to ensure that newly launched wines are ready to drink upon release.

Harmonie du Soir (“Evening Harmony”) refers to Baudelaire’s description of the exotic and magical mingling of fragrances in a garden as day turns to night.

Classic varieties of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Carmenère, (a lost Bordeaux variety) Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec are grown in a single vineyard at Clevedon overlooking the Hauraki Gulf in Southeast Auckland. They are blended to create an outstandingly complex and elegant wine.

Vintage 2014 was an ideal vintage with generous fruit and excellent conditions. We had rain though flowering and again during picking in April to challenge us. The canopy and fruit are manicured by hand throughout the season. We are dry land farmers and embrace the practices of natural farming managing our vineyard with organic or biodynamic soil additions and manual canopy and understory work.

We handpicked parcels at the peak of ripeness between 4-15 April. Total production for the vintage was 14.8 tonnes from 5.5 acres of vines. Yields were approximately 1kg per vine producing 33 hectolitres per hectare. Vine spacing is 1 x 2.5 metres. Vine age is 13 to 17 years.

In the winery, bunches were 100% destemmed and 80% crushed into oak cuves or stainless steel open-top fermenters. Ferments were cold soaked for 4-5 days to allow wild yeast development, then inoculated with oenological yeasts. Total time on skins ranged from 3-4 weeks depending on the varietal and the character desired. Free run wines were put to barrel and marc was lightly basket pressed. All wine was barrel aged in French oak, about 30% new, for 22 months before final blending. It was not sterile-filtered. Bottled under cork.

“Intense and complex red with a range of flavours including dark berry, plum, wood smoke, roasted chestnut, anise, spice and nutty oak. A delicious wine that's great to taste now but promises to develop further with bottle age.” - Bob Campbell MW 97 Points

“The very elegant 2014 vintage is a blend of Merlot (41 per cent), Cabernet Franc (31 per cent), Carménère (18 per cent) and Malbec (10 per cent). Fragrant, rich and still youthful, with deep, bright colour, it is concentrated and finely structured, with concentrated, plummy, spicy flavours, a hint of dark chocolate, and a savoury, silky, long finish. Best drinking 2023+” - Michael Cooper