With those challenges in mind, my wife Jeannie and I visited Trinity Hill for a wine tasting and platter in its cellar door area on the ground floor of the building. This 1997 building (worth a visit for the Richard Priest architecture), which houses the winery, lies just across the road from the Gimblett Gravels in which Trinity Hill has 45 hectares of the total 800 or so comprising this special wine growing area.

Trinity Hill states that its "... story began as a homage to the wines of the Northern Rhone, when gifted cuttings were planted in 1993." It was not long before the wines produced were attracting international attention and the praise of wine critics and writers, including in the northern hemisphere. Among them was James Halliday, who said this of the terroir from which Homage is grown: "Not just a very special parcel. It is a sacred site."

Homage is a Syrah first made in 2002. It has won multiple awards and gold medals and also sold en primeur. It is the best of four different Syrahs made at Trinity Hill. The winery also makes highly regarded white wines and Rosés. In all, it grows some 14 varieties, a few in very small parcels with some of these not usually found in New Zealand, let alone Hawke's Bay. Temperanillo, Touriga, Francesa, Marsanne and Tanat.

For the wine tasting, we had 2 whites and 4 reds. I added a fifth red, being the flagship Homage.

The Tourigas was a red fortified wine that tasted just as good as you would expect from a grape which is one of the major varieties used to make Port. Trinity Hill offers the grape in three forms: NV Touriga, which includes wine from 2004; National 2016, which is promoted as worth cellaring for 15 years; and Francesa 2016, which suggests 5-15 years of cellaring.

The Marsanne Viognier 2020 was new to us, and one of the descriptions given by the Trinity Hill team was accurate;

" ...unsuspecting and delicious it is a complete underdog in a region that is dominated by Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. It's a bit of both, fresh and friendly with structure and weight..."

It is not often we drink white wines, but this one will be offered at our next wine lovers' dinner as a challenge for identification. Marsanne and Viognier are the traditional white Varietals in the Rhone Valley so it will be interesting to see if they get the nationality right!

The other was a Gimblett Gravels Chardonnay 2023 which was very nice. I would call it typical inland as it does not have the "coastal bite" I associate with some of the Clearview Chardonnays.

Our last wine was the Homage but I mention it first of the reds because it is so good. It stands out and is probably best compared with the top Australian Syrahs, and Jancis Robinson MW said of it - " I'm tempted to make comparisons with Hermitage here! Great intensity and lovely silky texture but serious depth. Bravo! " Expensive, world-class, and worth resisting early drinking!

The only 2022 red wine on offer (there may be more) was a Tempranillo, which I have drunk before, and already recommend to friends. Tempranillo is the mainstay of all the best wines of Rioja but is also found in Port wines made in the Douro Valley and as a dry red wine from there. Trinity's team has described the wine in their notes as delivering; "...richness, generosity, and structure one expects from the variety". All is true and is reflected in multiple awards and reviews. What stands out to me is the balance between the richness and fineness apparent in the wine. They say it is worth keeping to 2032. We were told the wine had 7% Tauriga Francesa in it. I am not good enough to have identified that mix of Spanish and Portuguese, but it is still worth every cent of $40NZD.

I was in more familiar territory with The Gimblett 2021. This is a classic Bordeaux variety blend of Cabernet Sauvignon 46%, Cabernet Franc 50% and Petil Verdot 4%. Trinity says of the Petit Verdot that it gives the wine colour, spice, and structure. A well-known New Zealand taster and writer, Yvonne Larkin, gave this wine 5 stars. I loved the close of her tasting notes for it "....unfurling hints of dark berries, freshly turned earth alongside meaty, muscular tannins, the mouthfeel is warming, woolly soaked in soy and black olive and finishes with a suede-like consistency". I suspect it is necessary to have drunk more than one glass to get all of that. When I start on my Bordeaux next year (possibly at Christmas) I will choose the one closest to The Gimblett to see how they compare.

To close on this wine, the 2019 version was Cabernet Sauvignon 54%, Cabernet Franc 43% and Tempranillo 3%. Whereas 2021 is drunk to 2033, 2019 is said to go to 2037 and is best decanted before serving. Minor differences in the blend, so I expect the 2 years were different as opposed to the vineyard balance (within 2% for each year) and 2021 was built to drink earlier (it is 14.5% cp 13.5% from 2019). I will buy a 2019 to check! In other years the wine has included Merlot and Malbec.

The Gimblett Gravels Syrah 2021 was like a little brother to Homage. A bit tougher, meant in a kind way, has some bite, say less refinement. It is as good as any other of the $40 Syrahs on the market today. I liked it.

As we drove back towards Hastings with vineyards on our right, and some on our left (including some of Trinity Hill's Tempranillo), we passed signs identifying the many other wineries growing vines on the Gimblett Gravels. All on what appears to be barren, dry, and stoney ground. There is a large glass jar at Trinity's cellar door with a 50 cm or so sample of the gravels. It looks so uninviting to a plant that it is difficult to see how the first growers in the gravels could have thought that any plant would survive, let alone grow into long-lived vines producing such high-quality wine grapes. Trinity Hill was one of the first but others had tried too (in the late 80s).

In 2024 the Gimbett Gravels has legal protection as a wine-growing district with boundaries that cut off any false claims by imposters who claim to have wine in their bottles from these gravels. A vigorous association keeps a close eye on the claims of origin or associations made by would-be imposters.

If you are interested in how the different parcels find their way into particular Trinity Hill wines and what happens in the winery with a challenging year look for the Bob Campbell MW interview of chief winemaker Warren Gibson from 2022. Check out below:

At the southern end of the Gimblett Gravels there lies the Bridge Pa Triangle. It too lays claim to similar status but is much smaller and is mostly Syrah and Merlot. I mentioned it in the last blog when briefly describing the Red Metal Vineyard. Some years ago Syrah grown in the Triangle was bottled by the Daysh family and their label became one that was very highly regarded, especially for its Bridge Pa Vineyard Louis Syrah. It is no longer made but the grapes are finding their way into some good bottles with different labels. If you see that information on the label or in the notes - buy the wine. Warren Gibson also talks about using Triangle grapes.