Tasting Notes 2011
Cape Crest ‘11 is the finest example of this wine to date.
Cape Crest ’11 is absolutely lovely. It has a pale lemon colour, great aromas of white flowers, pears, and buttered toast. The palate has passionfruit and lime, with a brulee hint and an extended crispness. Cape Crest ‘11 will continue to 11 will continue to 11 will continue to evolve in bottle for five years from harvest and is a wonderful match with rich seafood and poultry dishes.
Cape Crest ’11 is a blend of 85% sauvignon blanc, 11% semillon, and 4% sauvignon gris. Cape Crest ‘11 is bottled with leading technology ‘DIAM’ corks. These are produced using a liquid form of carbon dioxide which eliminates any possibility of cork taint and, when the wine is well cellared, they provide consistent evolution for every bottle.
Technical Analysis
pH: 3.3
Total acidity as tartaric: 7g/l
Alcohol: 13%
Residual sugar: Dry
Winemaking
The separate parcels were each destemmed and lightly crushed, then cooled before a brief period of skin contact. Following pressing and cold-settling, they were run to a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation. The resulting wines were aged on lees, with regular stirring, for a further eight months before blending, fining and bottling in December 2011.
Vineyards
The fully ripe grapes were hand harvested from individual plots within Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between 14 and 26 March 2011.
Origin
Cape Crest and its gannet symbol refer to Cape Kidnappers, the southern point of Hawke Bay, home to the world’s largest mainland colony of these remarkable marine birds.