HALCYON DAYS HALCYON 2024

Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"100% Sauvignon Blanc. Grapes grown by Andrew Colman at the beautiful certified Osawa Vineyard. Halcyon takes its name from our name – Halcyon Days – picking up with the golden imagery we think of when we imagine what the light on those Halcyon Days might have been like. In fact, it’s the light we get every year in Te Matau a Maui, towards the end of summer as the low rays of sunlight cast a honeyed, golden hue across the vines.

Halcyon embodies our goals of making delicious, refreshing, textured, energetic wines from our place – Te Matau a Māui.

We make Halcyon to reflect that time of year and that golden sunlight, as well as providing a different prism through which to view – and experience – New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We pick the grapes just as they get ripe, keeping the beautiful, fresh acid line that Sauvignon is capable of. This freshness is tempered with texture from extended skin-contact throughout fermentation (we press the wine off its skins just as fermentation comes to a close). Not only does this provide texture, it also provides an incredibly complex array of aromas (typically from hay all the way to pineapple) and a wine colour that underlines the golden skin colour of Sauvignon Blanc on the vine.

Golden, textured, aromatically complex and delightfully refreshing, it also clocks in at a nice 10.5% alcohol.

All grapes for Halcyon  come from the beautiful, certified organic, Osawa vineyard in the Mangatahi subregion. Mangatahi is situated on the southern alluvial river terraces of the Ngaruroro Moko tū-ā-raro-ki-Rangatira Awa. With a higher elevation than the Heretaunga plains, it is slightly cooler, with more influence from the Kaweka and Ruahine pae maunga to the west. The soils are sandy loam over alluvial gravels with a ferrous content (referred to as “red metals” in Aotearoa).

The grapes were handpicked and then 50% whole bunch and 50% destemmed into an open fermenter. The wine fermented spontaneously with ambient yeasts on skins and with very gentle extraction over 10 days. It was pressed and underwent malolactic fermentation on full lees in a horizontal stainless steel tank for 12 months. Like all our wines, Halcyon was made with no additions, fining or filtration."

Reviews for previous vintages below…

93/100 Mike Bennine, The Wine Front, June 2024 (2022 Vintage)
"This is a feast for the senses. Lots of tropical fruits, passionfruit, juniper, tonic water characters and green apple through the bouquet and palate. Feels very pure, crisp and silky textured, light but detailed and with fine, minerally, briny edge. Refreshing and thirst-quenching in nature, verity to the varieties writ large. A delightful thing here."