2024 la collina Syrah
"This is a spectacular wine. It's truly great, and not just in a Hawke's Bay context, nor merely a New Zealand context but truly great in a global Syrah context. This is a superb example. I love it."
Erin Larkin
Mar 17, 2025
The 2024 growing season proved to be a joy after the very interesting 2023 and the fickle 2022. The only issue was the low crop levels. The fruit was hand harvested in perfect condition and this allowed for 100% whole bunch fermentation. The wine was fermented in open top fermentation vessels, pressed at dryness and transferred to barriques for élevage.
The aim is to produce a wine that shows the excitement of Hawke's Bay hillside Syrah. The 2024 la collina is a great example of this; spice, brambly and berry fruits with structure, length, velvety tannins and drinkability but still with the ability to age.
This is a great wine to enjoy now but will live for many years in your cellar. Cellar some and enjoy again, and again, over the next 15 - 20 years.
A vertical tasting in late 2025 of every vintage of la collina produced (starting with the inaugural 2002) showed the ageability of these wines with each vintage still having life in them.
Each wine is a journey not a destination!
(Ralph Waldo-Emerson - kind of!)
Erin Larkin
The Wine Advocate
Mar 17, 2025
RP98+
"The 2024 la collina Syrah is 100% whole-bunch fruit, which is dependent on the year, but this 2024 season was well suited to it. Aromatically, there's raw cocoa, fresh blood, pomegranate molasses, star anise, freshly mowed fennel, crushed rocks, licorice, lavender, raspberry and black tea, with pastrami and hung deli meat lace the edges. Gosh, I love this wine. On the medium-bodied palate, the wine is shaped by ductile, chalky tannins, which serve to drag out the flavor through the long finish. This is a spectacular wine. It's truly great, and not just in a Hawke's Bay context, nor merely a New Zealand context but truly great in a global Syrah context. This is a superb example. I love it."
"This terraced place is as beautiful as it tastes in the glass, which brings forth rose petals, asphalt, petrichlor, a crack of minerality and ozone. And the wine will only get better as it gains bottle-aged complexity."
James Suckling
JamesSuckling.com
October 4, 2025
98 Points
"Beautifully perfumed nose of freshly ground black pepper, cured meat, blue flowers, blood oranges, cherries and crushed stones. The impressive complexity and tension on the palate come with elegance and ease, unfolding with crushed berries, paprika, orange peel and savory, mineral nuances. Very energetic and dynamic. Drink or hold."
You may also like
