Rich savoury plum, spice and berry fruit aromas. Dark mocha and dark fruit flavours follow through to the palate, with a silky, dark chocolate finish.

Serve with roast beef, braised duck or enjoy with full-flavoured, hard cheese.

The Sileni Triangle is grown in the Bridge Pa Triangle, sub-region of Hawke’s Bay. Warm temperatures, coupled with free draining red metal gravels, provide the ideal conditions for growing Merlot. Crops were thinned sown to one bunch per shoot to provide ripe and concentrated fruit flavours.

Fruit for this reserve wine is de-stemmed and partially crushed into a mixture of open top fermenters and closed top tanks. The open top fermenters were hand plunged to extract colour and tannins from the skins, prior to post-ferment maceration. Primary fermentation took approximately seven days, the wine then stayed on skins for a further three weeks before pressing. It then completed malolactic fermentation and matured in French oak barriques (225L) for 18 months before bottling. The final blend consists of 20% new oak (French) and 5% second fill.