Ceresia Reviews
2020
95/100 Outstanding – camdouglasms.com
Master Sommelier – Cameron Douglas
Dark berries and olive leaf, dried herbs and black berries. There’s a smoky aspect with barrel spices of clove and baked vanilla. Complex and youthful. Taut and tightly wound on the palate, the core darker red berry fruits show that as this wine settles and ages it wil hold onto the power of the fruit and use the abundant chelky textured tannins, acidity and barrel flavours to develop complexities. A wine that will age well. Best drinking from 2025 through 2035.
2019
5 STARS – Buyers Guide to New Zealand Wines
Wine Writer – Michael Cooper
The debut 2019 vintage (5*) is rare – 852 bottles were made. Barrel-aged, and bottled unfined and unfiltered, it is full-coloured, fragrant, mouthfilling and supple, with generous blackcurrant, plum, red berry and spice flavours, finely integrated oak, and a real sense of vigour, delicacy, complexity and harmony. ‘Sexy and serious’, I jotted down.
93/100 – The Real Review
Bob Campbell – Master of Wine
Cabernet franc can be green and weedy, overripe and jammy or, like this, from a sweet spot between those two extremes. This is an elegant, supple red, gently aromatic with dark berry, spice and savoury flavours. It has a perfect balance of peppery tannins and subtle sweetness. Give it some air time to enhance the flavours.
2014
4.5 STARS – 2016 Buyers Guide to New Zealand Wines
Wine Writer – Michael Cooper
Full-coloured, it is youthful, but already drinking well, with mouth-filling body, vibrant, ripe blackcurrant and plum flavours, showing good concentration, well-integrated oak, finely balanced tannins and good potential.
95/100 – The Real Review
Bob Campbell – Master of Wine
A deep and aromatic red from a top Hawke’s Bay vintage. Seamless, linear, fine-grained wine with floral, violet, dark berry, anise and spicy oak flavours. A seductively elegant and appealing red that can be enjoyed now but promises to develop well with bottle age.
2013
5 STARS – 2016 Buyers Guide to New Zealand Wines
Wine Writer – Michael Cooper
The very elegant, Bordeaux-like full and youthful in colour, it’s a notably savoury and supple, full-bodied wine with concentrated, well-ripened blackcurrant, plum and spice flavours, oak complexity, and fine-grained tannins. Already delicious, it should be at its best from 2017 onwards.
