I was invited by the Royal NZ Ballet to the opening night of the Tutus on Tour show recently (it was great by the way).

Afterwards I went to Ernesto Restaurant in Wellington’s Cuba Street for dinner. (Service was a bit slow to start but picked up well. The food was great.) A friend and I shared a bottle of Te Mata Syrah from the Hawkes Bay. It was from the 2007 vintage and very good. What struck me was what a good match it was for my lamb. My friend had pork belly and this matched well too. The wine was very young but had great black pepper on the front pallet and a ripe red plum flavour on the back. It was a subtle and complex wine. What would it be like in a couple of years?

To test this I raided my cellar and extracted a bottle of Villa Maria Cellar Selection Hawke’s Bay Syrah from 2005 (I was fooled by this wine in a wine options competition in 2007 thinking it to be from the Rhone Valley so purchased half a dozen). This was slightly more subtle and complex but flavour wise was almost identical to the Te Mata interpretation. Lovely spicy black pepper on a plum aftertaste.

I recommend both wines strongly, it may be difficult to find the 2005 Villa Maria. Both wines demonstrate the difference between the NZ Syrah and the Aust Shiraz (Aussie talk for Syrah). The Hawke’s Bay wines are much less in your face, more subtle and very similar to the French Hermitage from the Rhone Valley. These vines are still very young. Imagine what they will be like when they mature fully.

There is a lot of Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot/Cabernet Franc planted in Hawke’s Bay. If global warming happens it might prove the right thing to plant. But apart from a few labels and vintages, I have yet to be excited by the Bordeaux varieties from Hawke’s Bay. Syrah, however, is really getting me interested. I suggest you stock up while prices are relatively low.

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