Steam Wharf Road Syrah

Background

History

Award-winning winemaker Fiona Turner draws on her vast experience in Marlborough and Hawkes Bay to source exceptional parcels of fruit for the Steam Wharf Road wines. The name Steam Wharf Road hails from the days when steam ships delivered provisions for the sheep farmers around New Zealand and collected bales of wool from warehouses on the rivers. Today, wharves have given way to wineries, and these once quiet communities are now at the centre of the wine world.

Winemaking details

Fiona Turner

Regional info

Two different clones of Syrah sourced from a single vineyard site in Hawkes Bay in the subregion of Dartmoor from some of the oldest Syrah vines planted in New Zealand. Ripening late into the autumn this site benefits from slightly higher altitude allowing warm days and cool nights to concentrate flavours and ripen tannins without fruit shrivel and loss of acidity. Planted on an ancient river terrace, the soils have a silt top soil overlaying stone mixed with some clay and silt loam allowing good drainage and proving very good at growing a more restrained elegant and aromatic style of Syrah. For the first time they also sourced fruit from the Gimblett Gravels region along SH50. The unique gravel soils here, give power and structure to the wines.