Winemaker Notes
This wine shows Syrah in a unique perspective, it’s more about texture and concentration than aromatics. The Clayvin Syrah displays restrained notes of dark berries, plum and black berries with light cedar notes in the background. The palate is powerful and full of texture and concentration with a savory finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Attractive notes of cured meat and savory plums mark the nose of the 2013 Single Vineyard Selection Clayvin Syrah, a wine that is still available in some markets. Medium to full-bodied, this velvety-textured beauty delivers peppery spices, hints of clove and cumin and mulberry-like fruit, then ends long, with a touch of licorice.
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Wine Enthusiast
It's a treat to taste a wine with some bottle age that's still readily available. From Giesen's 26-year-old organically farmed hillside vineyard, age has transformed this wine into something very perfumed. With the same polish and flash as the 2016, there's now a touch of volatility acting to lift the blackberry and blueberry fruit, potpourri florals and peppery earthy spice to new heights. The palate still shows lots of tannic grip and the fruit here is holding up well. This still has at least another five to seven years left in it.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The Giesen family has produced some of New Zealand's top wines. The 2013 Clayvin Syrah is another notch on their belt. TASTING NOTES: This New World Syrah is overtly fruity and rich. Its aromas and flavors of nicely-focused black fruit show up ripe and delicious on the palate. Pair it with roast duck in a white wine reduction sauce. (Tasted: September 18, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Decanter
Bursting with black cherry, baked tamarillo, vanilla and spice aromas; sweetly fruity and quite substantial on the palate, with firm grip and juicy acidity. Will improve.
From the Estate Range to the Single Vineyard Series, Giesen delivers stylish wines that showcase the riches of Marlborough.
Proudly family-owned by three brothers Theo, Alex and Marcel since 1981. Originally from Germany, today the Giesen brothers are the proprietors of 13 vineyards located throughout the highly sought after Wairau Valley, a subregion of Marlborough. The vineyards spread across the length & breadth of the valley giving a range of grape growing conditions and flavor. 20% of Giesen vineyards are certified organic or in transition.
The Giesens are the leading buyers of German 1,000 liter Fuder barrels in New Zealand. The Fuders are coveted in winemaking for the lees influence (due to large dimension across the bottom of the barrel) as well as the lighter oak toasting – which provides an aromatic sweetness. Giesen is known and respected for showcasing Marborough’s unique vineyard and vintage characteristics and to delivering superb vine-to-bottle quality across the range
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.