Te Mata Bullnose Syrah 2024

Te Mata Estate was established here in 1896, specialising in high-quality wines of classical style. Every step in the production of our wines is undertaken by us; from grape growing and pruning through to small-batch winemaking, sub-regional blending, and bottling. After 130 years of winemaking onsite Te Mata Estate has both the oldest and the newest – most technically advanced – cellars in New Zealand.

Hawke’s Bay is a very special place for making wine. Its range of slopes, plains and climatic differences, coupled with low humidity and ample ultra-violet light, give winemakers a comprehensive toolkit to showcase their skills. There are micro-regions on sandstone, lime, clay and iron, and many with young soils derived from the gravels, silt and sands left behind as the five main rivers of Hawke’s Bay changed course over thousands of years.

The wine is named Bullnose after an early Morris Cowley car, which was nicknamed Bullnose due to its distinctive radiator. The bull emblem that appears on the wine label is drawn from the car’s radiator crest.

Separate parcels of fully ripened syrah grapes were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s Bridge Pa, Gimblett Gravels and Dartmoor vineyards on 25 March and 9 April 2024.

The individual lots were each destemmed and given a traditional warm-plunged fermentation. The resulting wines underwent extended maceration on skins before pressing and then a secondary malolactic fermentation. The separate wines were then run to a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barriques for 16 months’ maturation, with 34% being new oak. During this time, they were regularly topped and racked, before blending and then bottling in November 2025.