HALCYON DAYS Heliacal Rise 2025 10.5% alc

Heliacal rise is named for the rise of the stars in the east, prefiguring the sun. It is our orange/rosé expression of this site with the orange pink underside of clouds and all damson plums and dried roses.

This wine style was inspired by the blending or red and white varieties common in our village where we lived in Spain. This was done to achieve a juicy refreshing wine that also had texture between an orange and a rose. 

We also wanted to experiment with the red being made without skin ferment and the white skin fermented, a role reversal of types. 

All the grapes in this blend come from the Osawa vineyard, a BioGro certified organic site in Mangatahi, inland Hawke’s Bay. This wine reminds us of the beautiful rose-tinted clouds at dusk and dawn, the last light of the day diffuse in the vineyard rows and the cool streaks of sunlight heralding the new day; the warmth of the soil still radiating from the day and the damp dew underfoot in the morning.

The Pinot Noir was handpicked in one day from the 115 clone block in the vineyard’s mid-terrace. The grapes were whole-bunch pressed to produce rosé juice and fermented with indigenous yeasts.

The Chardonnay portion was also handpicked and put into open fermenters to ferment with no added yeast. The Chardonnay is treated a little like a red wine with a gentle hand plunge when we feel it’s needed. It was then pressed and combined after two weeks on skins. 

Blend: 33% Chardonnay (Clone 15) fermented on skins and 66% Pinot Noir (115 clone) whole-bunch pressed and fermented as rosé. The two were blended in the winter to complete natural malolactic fermentation prior to bottling with no additions.

Bottling analysis pH 3.65, TA 8.4, RS 0, alc 10.5%

Biogro certified Organic 6117