2021 Te Mata Bullnose Syrah

99 POINTS

Sam Kim - Wine Orbit

Expressing precision and purity, combined with brooding strength and complexity, this is spectacular and breathtaking. Immediately appealing with dark plum, sweet cherry, graphite, olive, spicy oak and floral aromas, it’s succulent and fleshy in the mouth delivering layers of seductive flavours backed by beautifully infused tannins. It’s mouthfilling and velvety with a prolonged engaging finish.

96 POINTS

James Suckling

This includes some Gimblett Gravel fruit, which gives black and white-pepper, iodine, lead-pencil, and black-fruit aromas and flavors. Tar and asphalt, too. Full-bodied and tied in with a lovely structure and focus. Linear and very racy. Terrific integration and structure. Drinkable now, but better in two or three years.

96 POINTS

Huon Hooke - The Real Review

Almost glass-staining purple colour, very bright; the bouquet loaded with an amalgam of brown spice aromas, toasted nuts too, including clove, nutmeg and pepper. A powerful, concentrated and tensioned wine with bright acidity and firm but measured tannins that lead into a very long finish. Great potential here.

95 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

Seem to have missed the 2020 Bullnose, though here we are with the 2021, which is a similar vintage in terms of quality and character, though comes with a bit more freshness in terms of acid profile, and perhaps more aromatics. Intense purple colour. Very bright and floral, a sniff of black and white pepper and baking spice, really quite exotic perfume here, grilled meat, purple fruit, boysenberry. Gee, it really pops. Medium-bodied, bright and fresh, lots of energy, red fruits, graphite tannin, umami flavours but not at the expense of fragrance and finesse. Finish is excellent, and long, kind of dusty and spicy, a distinctly cool ‘mineral’ feel, with a game and juniper berry edge. A terrific expression of HB Syrah.

94 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2021 Bullnose Syrah gives us Asian five spice, musk, red dirt, gravel and blueberry on the nose. There's a distinctly darker fruit character on the palate, with red licorice, pomegranate, savory and gentle meat nuances. This is fleshy but with energy and finesse. Matured for 16 months in French oak (33% new), it's almost creamy, with hints of cream soda and sarsaparilla, and there's a spice/blood root character. This wine achieves that aspirational balance between sweet fruit and savory tannin.

93 POINTS

Rebecca Gibb MW - Vinous

The 2021 Syrah Bullnose is exotically spiced, leaving you half expecting a belly dancer to appear while you're drinking it. It is sweetly fruited while full of floral fragrance, cardamom, cinnamon and sandalwood. While it is richly fruited, it is not a big Syrah in terms of size. It does, however have motion and drive; the tannins are well-handled. Fragrant and long with sinew providing length and carrying its scent. You could approach this in youth if you were the world's most impatient person but I'd hang on, as this will be delightful in the coming 6 to 10 years and beyond.

93 POINTS

Amanda Barnes - Decanter

One of the silkiest Syrah wines from Hawke’s Bay, Bullnose is pure seduction. A lifted bouquet of sweet red cherries with violets, sweet spices and pink peppercorn, it is charming and inviting, leading to a generous yet silky smooth finish. One of the most emblematic wines from one of New Zealand’s most historic wine estates.