Awatea takes its name from the historic ship SS Awatea (a Maori word meaning ‘Eye of the Dawn’) that sailed the Auckland – Sydney – Wellington route in the late 1930s. The Awatea was requisitioned as troop transport in WWII and was sunk off Algeria in 1942.

VINEYARDS
The grapes for Awatea Cabernets/Merlot ’23 were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s Hawke’s Bay vineyards between 4 and 18 April 2023.

TASTING NOTE
With a gleaming crimson core and ruby rim, Awatea Cabernets/Merlot ’23 is enticingly perfumed with blackberry, bay, violets, and vanilla. The satisfying palate is detailed, poised and texturally rewarding, interplaying plum, black olive and sandalwood notes
with salinity, refreshing acidity and bright tannin length. It has a captivating elegance that is classically Te Mata.

CELLARING POTENTIAL
Awatea Cabernets/Merlot ’23 is closed with a Diam cork, allowing continued evolution
in bottle for 10 years from harvest.