Te Mata Awatea Cabernets/Merlot 2024

Reviews

Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion: 98/100. Deep magenta/crimson with lifted blackberry, red and dark plum, black cherry, underlying hints of fine spice, cedar, plum conserve, gentle crushed mountain herbs, roast meats, some gentle black pepper, cocoa nibs, olive tapenade, crushed rock and a suggestion of tobacco. A graceful, detailed flow of fruit over the palate, layered with spice, herbs and gravelly nuance, superfine, powdery tannins and a long finish.

Sam Kim, Wine Orbit: 96/100. This is comparable to a high-ranked Cru Classé Bordeaux, at a fraction of the price. The bouquet is classic and inviting with blackcurrant, dark cherry, tobacco, fennel, and fine oak with a floral overtone. It’s mouth-filling, succulent, and supple with a silky flow and persistence. Splendidly composed and styled, and finishes impressively long and robust.

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front (Dec 2025): 95+/100. Plum, dark berries, chocolate dipped strawberries, cedar, spice, dried flowers and tobacco. It’s medium- bodied, quite dense and firm, cool ‘mineral’ acidity, a graphite grip to tannin, a distinct savoury tobacco character, a little bit saline and iodine-laced too. There’s some bitter dark chocolate on a finish of excellent length. Here’s a pretty serious and structured Awatea, and it’s one of the best releases to date. Drink 2027-2038+

James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com): 95/100. This wine shows such focus, with blackberry, black currant, walnut, graphite and some dark chocolate aromas. Medium- to full-bodied with layers of ripe, beautiful tannins and a long and caressing finish. It’s all here and shows such an enticing texture. Hard not to drink now. Drink or hold.

Cameron Douglas MS: 94/100.  An inviting and  nicely intense bouquet with core aromas and flavours of fresh plums and blackberries, boysenberry and some barrel spice, earth-smoke of clay and stone, then a salty leesy quality. An abundance of tannins and acidity ensure this wine will continue to age well. It can also be enjoyed today if decanted. 

Tasting Note:

Bright crimson with a royal purple edge, Awatea '24 glows in the glass with youthful poise and vitality. The aroma is refined and perfumed, offering blackberry, dark plum, cassis, redcurrant, and dark cherry with layers of thyme, cedar, tapenade and a gentle floral lift. The palate is generous and seamless, with black plum and blackberry carried by silky, ripe tannins and a savoury umami thread of black truffle, spice and plum sauce. The finish is long, polished and mouth-watering, revealing clarity, balance, and a classical Awatea with depth and graceful evolution ahead.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: Red wine from New Zealand

Varietals: 62% Merlot, 27% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Cabernet Franc

Vineyards: Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. The grapes for Awatea '24 were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s Hawke’s Bay vineyards between 21 March and 9 April 2024.

Winemaking: The separate parcels of grapes were destemmed before a traditional warm-plunged fermentation and extended maceration on skins. The resulting wines were then run to new and seasoned French oak barrels for 17 months, with 28% being new oak. Throughout this time, they were regularly topped and racked. The separate wines were blended in November 2024, then returned to barrel for their second winter. The finished wine was then fined and bottled in November 2025.

The name: 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.

Alcohol: 13.5% vol

Total acidity: 5.5 g/l

Wine style: dry

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: Contains sulphites, egg white.

Ingredients: Grapes, sucrose, egg albumin, antioxidants (potassium metabisulphite (sulphites)), acidity regulators (tartaric acid (L(+)-))

Cellaring potential: 2026 – 2034+

Closure: Diam Cork

Produced and bottled by: Te Mata Estate, PO Box 8335, Havelock North, Hawkes Bay 4157, New Zealand

Distributor: vinabonus GmbH, Simmedenweg 40, 34134 Kassel, Germany