Awatea '97

Awatea Cabernet/Merlots '18

A wine that exhibits the best qualities of great Hawke’s Bay cabernets/merlot - intense aromatic berry fruit characters, a rich mid-palate and a supple tannin structure. Awatea is a full flavoured wine that can be enjoyed over 8-10 years.

$39.90/ bottle

Tasting Notes 1997

1997 Awatea has a dark ruby colour, an aroma of plums, black cherries and olives, and a flavour supported by spicy and toasty oak with long tannins.

1997 Awatea will develop in bottle for 4-8 years from harvest and is a blend of 56% cabernet sauvignon, 30% merlot and 14% cabernet franc.

It is a great partner for all red meats, pizza and other Italian food and cheese.

Technical Analysis

pH: 3.76
Total acidity as tartaric: 5.8g/l
Alcohol: 13%
Residual sugar: Dry


The grapes were destemmed and crushed, then had a warm, plunged fermentation following by a period of maceration on skins and a malolactic fermentation. The individual components were then run to new and used barrels for eighteen months oftopping, racking, blending and egg-white fining, before bottling at the end of 1998.


The grapes were hand harvested between the 10th and the 29th April.


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

View this Tasting Note as a PDF.