When the demand of a wine exceeds the supply, vineyards sell by an 'allocation' system, and we're amongst the lucky few to have an allocation with the famous Felton Road in New Zealand.
Felton Road farms four properties in the Bannockburn sub-region of Central Otago, their 118,400 vines all receive individual, careful attention by hand. The wines are named after the vineyards the grapes have originated from, and are vegan, organic, biodynamic & low in sulphites.
The wines labelled Bannockburn are a blend from the four vineyards; Cornish Point, Calvert, MacMuir and The Elms.
The Cornish Point vineyard enjoys a unique mesoclimate from being in close proximity to water. The bouquet is particularly intense from this vineyard, wines display dense and dark fruit, with warm and inviting textures from usually softer acidities and rounded, well-formed tannins.
The soils at Calvert are deep heavy silts with a thin layer of loess topsoil. The wines have excellent texture and mouthfeel with floral aromatics and ripe dark fruits. The tannins are fine and focused with a distinct minerality.
The even soil distribution in the MacMuir vineyard minimises variation within the blocks ensuring consistency of fruit quality and character. The wines exhibit a decadent texture with floral aromatics and ripe dark fruits. The tannins are fine and focused with a distinct minerality in a similar fashion to Calvert.
The Elms vineyard has a variation in soil, slope, elevation and aspect; fruit is very varied in personality so is separated into blocks.- Block 3 has a deep bench of silt soil with calcarious seams, these wines show power & complexity.- Block 5 soils vary up the slope from heavy loess to gravels, this generates a unique finesse and depth to the wine.