Clearview Estate Wine Tasting

Clearview Estate is an excellent vineyard located next to the sea in the Te Awanga region of the Hawkes Bay.  We had the pleasure of a wine tasting this evening with the full-of-life passionate Tim Turvey (owner & winemaker) at the North Shore Wine & Food Society.

It was a magnificent evening and Tim brought along lots and lots of different wines to taste (some of which had only been bottled last Monday, such as the Blush Rose!).  I’m not going to critique each one, in fact there are already some I’ve reviewed on this blog before, but provide my general thoughts.

The white wines were my pick of the evening.  In fact there was not a single wine I tasted this evening I would not happily go out and buy.  The Gewürztraminer wasn’t too heavy on Turkish Delight, the Semillon was lovely and delicate, the Reserve Chardonnay was as good as ever and as for the 2007 Endeavour Chardonnay (Cellar Door Price $250) this was magnificent, well balanced and very smooth.

In terms of the reds, the Pinot Noir des Trois was quite an interesting drop with Pinot Noir from three different areas of New Zealand coming together to form this nicely layered wine.  The Blush Rose was also lovely to drink.  The pick of the reds though had to be the 2007 Basket Press ($140); this was so flavoursome and perfectly balanced.

A very enjoyable evening and for white wines, in particular, Clearview Estate may now be my favourite vineyard.