HALCYON DAYS ALCYONE 2022

Winery notes (2022 Vintage)
"Halcyon Days wines are Biogro organic certified, handpicked and naturally fermented, with no additions. We use time-honoured methods to create striking wines that are a dynamic expression of Halcyon’s place: Heretaunga, Hawke’s Bay.

Alcyone (Olly pronounces it with a hard “c”, as in Alk-eye-o-nee, while Amy pronounces it “Al-see-own” – take your pick) is one of the nymphs, or pleiades, in Greek mythology (from which we get the name of the kingfisher, Halcyon). It is also the brightest of the stars in the Pleiades, or Matariki (a star formation with a heliacal rise that announces the start of Matariki here in Aotearoa).

As you can see, we got quite involved in the naming of this wine but in essence it is, quite simply, Mangatahi’s older sister. Whereas our 2022 Mangatahi was a vibrant dark rosé/light red, Alcyone is our more structured red expression of Sangiovese from the beautiful Osawa vineyard in 2022.

The grapes were hand picked, part destemmed, part whole bunch to open fermenter, natural ferment on skins with very gentle extraction for 10 days. Pressed and underwent malo and aging in the tank. No additions filtration or fining."

92/100 Gary Walsh, The Wine Front, June 2022 (2022 Vintage)
"Light and crunchy expression of Sangiovese here. Strawberry, cherry, a bit of spice and dried herb savouries. A slight new leather thing too. It has fine supple dusty tannin, good freshness, and drinks very nicely. Could even take a light chill."