Bilancia La Collina 2009 Hawke's Bay Syrah (HD)
In this episode I taste another of my top 3 New Zealand Syrahs. Bilancia, owned by Warren Gibson and Lorraine Leheny. The la collina vineyard is a steep, terraced and incline planted hillside vineyard on the North/Northwest facing slopes of Roys Hill, west of Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. The hillside is protected from the cooling effects of the southerly and southwesterly winds and during the growing season is bathed in sunshine.
The subsoil type is sandstone/limestone which can be managed unirrigated in all but the driest of seasons. The site is frost free and due to the windy aspect has extremely low disease pressure. Bunch and berry sizes are very small and the crop levels are self regulating due to harshness of the flowering conditions. Normal crop loading is less than 1 kg per vine.