The best of the best: Announcing the GIMBLETT GRAVELS® 2024 Annual Vintage Selection – What a vintage! On revealing the top 12, Andrew Caillard MW declared, “the 2024 Gimblett Gravels® vintage has yielded an embarrassment of richness.”
The Annual Vintage Selection (AVS) is a curated case of twelve standout wines from the Gimblett Gravels Wine Growing District®, each chosen to highlight the District’s quality. Selected via a blind tasting led by world renowned Master of Wine Andrew Caillard, the 2024 AVS represents the best of the vintage. Now in its seventeenth year, the initiative ensures influential wine media and market leaders stay connected to the District, vintage by vintage.
The 2024 Gimblett Gravels® vintage will be remembered as one of the finest in recent years. Andrew noted that due to the calibre of the harvest, “this vintage resulted in many signature wines; reflective of singular visions and well-honed craftsmanship.”
Renowned for exceptional Syrah, Andrew said the variety shone in 2024, with the very best Syrahs “exemplified by their soaring aromatics, generosity of flavour and vigorous flow.”
While individually Syrah was the star performer, Andrew noted the calibre of the Merlot and Cabernet blends, commenting, “the art of blending elevated Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot to a similar level of quality albeit in a different but equal class.”
The 2024 Annual Vintage Selection evokes the character of the vintage, the winemaker’s craft and the regional texture of Gimblett Gravels® wines, with Andrew remarking, “this selection will create debate and commentary around the world.”
Chairman of the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers Association, Cameron Price, described the vintage as remarkable, commenting, “the 2024 vintage has produced Gimblett Gravels® reds of exceptional balance, a reflection of the maturity of the district and deserving of their first-class reputation on the world stage.”
The 2024 Annual Vintage Selection comprises the following wines:
Blended reds (Bordeaux varieties)
- Craggy Range Sophia
- Mission Estate Jewelstone Antoine
- Smith & Sheth Cantera
- Squawking Magpie The Nest
- Trinity Hill The Gimblett
- Villa Maria Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot
Syrah
- Craggy Range Le Sol
- Cuvar Guardians Syrah
- Elephant Hill Stone Syrah
- Sacred Hill Wine Thief Syrah
- Squawking Magpie Stoned Crow Syrah
- Villa Maria Cellar Selection Syrah
In the coming weeks, the 2024 Annual Vintage Selection will be presented to key opinion leaders throughout the world for their review.
More information here: https://thegimblettgravels.com/about-us/annual-vintage-selection/
EDITOR’S NOTE
The seventeenth year of this initiative from the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers Association, the Annual Vintage Selection provides a snapshot of each vintage and helps to chart the evolution of GIMBLETT GRAVELS® wines.
GIMBLETT GRAVELS® is a fully registered trademark owned by the Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers
Association, established in 2001. Only members of the Association are entitled to brand their qualifying wines as GIMBLETT GRAVELS® where such wines comprise a minimum of 95% fruit grown on specific free draining gravel soils deposited by the Ngaruroro River in inland Hawke’s Bay, North Island.
The combination of these deeply layered gravels – of which there are only 800 hectares (2000 acres) by area – and warm maritime climate has served to produce blended (Bordeaux varietal) red and Syrah wines that have achieved critical acclaim around the globe.