Cooper's Creek 1998 Hawke's Bay Merlot

Cooper's Creek Vineyard is located in Kumeu outside Auckland. The grapes for this wine were sourced from Hawke's Bay. I must admit that this wine took me by surprise. My experiences with New Zealand wine of the Bordeaux varietals has been underwhelming prior to this. On top of that, Merlot doesn't ring my bell very much anyway. So I was quite surprised by the intensity of flavor in this one. It had a lot of chewy bramble, blackberry & tar flavors.

Although not quite integrated from attack to finish, it is a good but not exceptional wine. However, at just US$12 a bottle in DC, I thought it was a very good value. If it were summertime, I would having this on the patio with grilled burgers or sausage.

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