The 06 Bendigo Syrah is a terrific wine. It's a spicy, cool-grown style with lots of red-berry and gently herbal flavours on a very elegant, intensely focussed palate.  

The 2006 Aurora Vineyard Syrah - Outstanding. The bouquet is facinating, showing dried herbs and clove characteristics as well as ripe red fruits. Poise and balance are features of a long, finely-structured palate. 6 GOLDS

 

Our tasting confirmed Hawke’s Bay as New Zealand’s Syrah HQ -only one top wine (four stars and above) came from outside the region, a triumph for newcomer The Aurora Vineyard in Bendigo, Central Otago.

The panel enjoyed this wine’s stylistic Frenchness, oozing red and black sweet berryfruit charm.  Central Otago is certainly the most continental of our regions.  It may be a long way south, but hotspot Bendigo does get the heat Syrah likes so much, and this wine is swimming against the Pinot tide.

 

New Zealand’s best wines & wineries - 2006 AURORA SYRAH (5/5)

This wine… has a character that seems to combine qualities of Hermitage in the Rhone and subtler examples of Shiraz from Australia. It’s very (white) peppery and juicily berryish, with attractive vanilla oak.  - Robert Joseph

 

A beautiful cool-climate expression of Syrah. It has a really lovely white pepper and spice definition to the raspberry and dark cherry fruit, with an almost Burgundian elegance and freshness. There’s lovely purity to the fruit here, which is ripe and dark with great natural acidity. Real elegance here: it seems nicely poised between but utterly compelling – it reminds me of the best of the Gimblett Gravel Syrahs in style. Bendigo is a warm subdistrict of Central Otago, which explains why they’ve been able to make this wine from somewhere you wouldn’t expect to excel with Syrah. 92/100  - Jamie Goode

 

Syrah from Central Otago, hotbed of Pinot Noir and cool-climate white varieties, is something of a rarity. Aurora’s vineyards in Bendigo are in one of the warmest micro-climates, and their Syrah is planted on their hottest terrace to maximise ripening potential. This has a really fantastic nose, where a subtle herbaceousness marries beautifully to fat, smoky bacon character, with lush berry fruits and hints of spicy white pepper. On the palate this is poised, lush, full-fruited but racy, with a lovely peppery edge to the fruit, that’s all berries and crisp raspberry, with fine, supply tannins adding some grip and clean acidity sharpening the finish.  The quality French oak adds a refined cedar and spice, in a terrific Syrah which views with the best I’ve tasted from even recognised New Zealand Syrah hot spots like the North Island’s Hawkes Bay.  - Tom Cannavan

 

Central Otago for Pinot, yes, but Syrah? Aurora Vineyards claims to have the only one in the region and it’s rather good. It’s a bit shy at first, but with time in the glass, it fleshes out to reveal sweet, smoky plum and berry, and pepper and spice characters on the finish.
Drink 2008-2010 89 point.  - Simon Woods

 

This has very good intensity on the Northern Rhone like nose. White pepper and a touch of game coming through. The palate is medium-bodied with very fine tannins, good balance and harmony with touches of earth, mocha and white pepper on the finish. Fine. Drink now 2012. -Neal Martin

 

It has a fine, dark, enticing core which gives way at the rim to a dark, pink-purple rim. The nose is also appealing, with aromas of white pepper and plums, and blackberries just on the edge of ripeness, so that they retain their refreshing tang. But this is not a wine characterised by simple fruit, as there are little nuances of roasted meat and a smoky-flinty-mineral note alongside these characteristics, which suggest that this will be a wine, I drink with pleasure. And this is true; the palate has a lovely style, not at all short on texture or weight, and is in fact a little creamy, but it is cut through with a cool and incisive acidity which runs right through the midpalate and lingers on the finish. There is plenty of dark fruit flavour, plenty of spice and pepper, and overall it is delicious… and maybe it would do well in the cellar too? There is a lot here for The Aurora Vineyard and New Zealand to sing about, a country that clearly isn’t all Sauvignon Blanc… or Pinot Noir… or Cabernet Sauvignon.  - Chris Kissack