Man O' War Dreadnought Syrah 2017

Reviews and Accolades

Rebecca Gibb MW: NZ Wine to try (in The Wines of New Zealand). ...consistently encapsulates everything that is good in New Zealand Syrah - dark fruit, black pepper spice and smoked-meat flavours wrapped up in an elegant, medium-weight parcel with bags of freshness on the finish.

Cameron Douglas MS: 95/100 (Outstanding). Immediately recognisable and seductive bouquet with aromas of black berry and raspberry, dark plums and black pepper. The aromas expand to include clove and cocoa, toasty wood and dark dry rocky soil impressions. On the palate - dry, weighty, firm textures from tannins, warming alcohol and an abundance of acidity. Fruit flavours reflect the palate led by dark raspberry and black cherry. Persistent and engaging throughout the palate, well made and ready. Best drinking from today and through 2024.

Decanter: 92/100 (25 of the best New Zealand wines for spring). An elegant, sinewy style of Syrah, showing aromas of tarmac, cured meat and fresh blackberries. Appealing balsamic freshness on the palate, which is strewn with peppery black fruit, dark minerals and structured chalky tannins from 18 months maturation in barrel. Drinking Window 2021 – 2025.

Bob Campbell, MW: 95/100 & Top Rank 2017 Syrah Syrah from New Zealand. Fermented using wild yeasts and some whole clusters. Deep, dense syrah that's jam-packed with many flavours including plum, dark berry, black pepper, a suggestion of violet, liquorice, leather and tar characters. A powerful, complex wine with a promising future. Drink 2020 - 2027

James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com): 92/100 This has a very rich, ripe-blackberry and dark-plum nose with plenty of dark, toasted spice and black pepper. The palate is concentrated and smooth-honed with dense, fine tannins that carry a very plush, juicy and succulently long finish. Impressive purity here. Drink now.

Tasting note

2017 Dreadnought Syrah is very classical in style, lifted black berries, dark plums with an edge of graphite and pepper along with savoury stem derived characters make for an intense and interesting aroma profile. The palate is very linear but vibrant carrying good weight and concentration but also a lively streak from the stem inclusion that makes the finish seem fresh and lithe. A great expression of Syrah and compelling summary of the vintage.

Aromas and flavours

Additional information

Type: Red wine from New Zealand

Varietal: 100% Syrah

Food match: Match with roasted beef and venison, and slow-cooked lamb dishes or an aged cheddar

Alcohol: 13.5% vol

Residual sugar:<1g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulfite

Decanting: Yes.

Vineyards: Mad mans, Asylum, Big North, Garden cove, Niko Face, 20 Tonner, North 3 on Waiheke Island, New Zealand.

Vintage: Vintage 2017 began with a settled and dry Spring resulting in great flowering and a corresponding excellent fruit set. Dry drought like conditions continued into January providing terrific fruit flavours and tannins before a number of intense periods of rainfall, culminating in the arrival of Cyclone Debbie wreaked havoc with the vintage

Winemaking: The readnought Syrah comes from steep hillside vineyards and is carefully hand harvested before delivery to the winery. The fruit is put across a sorting table before being de stemmed and delivered to open vats for fermentation and in select cases whole clusters where included in the ferment. Syrah is allowed to ferment with wild yeasts with plunging or pump overs being carried out twice daily. Following an extended time on skins (average 35days in vat) the wines are gently pressed and taken straight to barrel for natural malolactic fermentation in the spring. The wines are racked once to a blend after 18 months before further maturing in tank for 3 months prior to bottling. Barrels: 32% New French oak Puncheons 68% seasoned.

Cellaring potential: until 2024+

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled by: Man O' War Vineyards, PO Box 1287, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140, New Zealand