Sophia, Gimblett Gravels, Craggy Range 2022
Wine Enthusiast 91
Mix any six bottles and you pay the Any 6+ price at checkout — no code needed.
£10 tracked UK delivery, however many bottles.
We pack and send twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
Members pay £59.60 — £14.90 less on this bottle. Membership is £120 a year and carries the EDKA Promise. Membership terms
Why this wine
Sophia is Craggy Range's Merlot-led statement from the Gimblett Gravels, made from the same French oak vats every vintage and matured in a cellar kept deliberately still. It is a Bordeaux blend with New Zealand's floral lift, which is a combination very little else offers.
At a glance
- Grape
- Merlot 77%, Cabernet Franc 23%
- Region
- Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
- Alcohol
- 13.00%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Medium (5-10 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Subtle wild thyme and sage woven into plum, fruit cake and brioche rather than sitting on top of them. Medium-bodied, with an enticing suppleness and sweetness of fruit through the middle of the palate and a long, easy finish. Merlot 77%, Cabernet Franc 23%.
The producer
Craggy Range was established in 1998 by Terry and Mary Peabody, who looked down from Te Mata Peak onto the land the winery now occupies and set out to make wines that evoked the landscape and heritage of the region. It remains family-owned, works estate vineyards in Hawke's Bay, Martinborough and Marlborough, and is certified by Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand. Sophia comes from the Gimblett Gravels, a district lying on the ancient bed of the Ngaruroro River, which changed course in 1867 and exposed the soils to viticulture: small to medium greywacke stones over layers of silt and sand to a depth of at least forty metres, absorbing sunlight by day and radiating heat at night. It is the warmest site in Hawke's Bay but never excessively hot, so the floral aromatics in the fruit survive. The fruit was hand harvested, meticulously sorted and fully destemmed, fermented in French oak vats set aside for this wine every year, then matured for the most part over seventeen months in French barriques, a third of them new, in an underground cellar chosen for its stillness.
Food and drinking
Best at 16-18C, with an hour in a decanter. It suits roast lamb, braised beef short rib, duck with cherries and an aged Gouda, and should drink well for five to ten years. Sealed under screwcap. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.