93 POINTS: Decanter
5 STARS: Michael Cooper
25 Not-to-be-missed NZ Wines, Michael Cooper
This is simply one of New Zealand's best Syrahs. As winemaker at Trinity Hill, Warren Gibson's Syrah credentials are stellar - and this is his own beloved expression of the grape, made from their top vines on a sun-facing hillside above the Gimblett Gravels. This exceptional fruit is hand-havested in multiple passes and co-fermented with skins of Viognier from the same site (this classic combination is a tradition at Trinity Hill too) before the
gentlest of treatments in the winery, including 21 months "resting" in light-impact new French oak. With elegance and harmony to burn from a great vintage for Syrah, this will keep aging or drink now.

"Trinity Hill winemaker Warren Gibson and his wife, fellow winemaker Lorraine Leheny, founded Bilancia in 1997, planting Syrah on a steep terraced slope that was later named La Collina – Italian for hill. It's a very pure Côte-Rôtie style co-fermented with Viognier skins, giving lifted violet juiciness and great elegance of dark, peppery fruit, grainy tannins and fresh acidity.