2023 Halcyon Days Friends Indeed
WINEMAKER: Amy Hopksinson-Styles & Olly Styles
REGION: Hawke’s Bay, NZ
VARIETY: Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Chardonnay
VITICULTURE: Certified Organic
Stylistically between a rosé and an orange wine. Friends indeed is a cyclone wine and a one off from 2023.
After the cyclone we weren’t sure if we would have any grapes from Hawke’s Bay other than the Osawa Chardonnay. We called our good friends Al and Karl at Grava vineyard in Martinborough and asked if they had any spare organic fruit and they offered us some 115 Pinot Noir. Olly drove our little vintage truck down and helped Al and the crew handpick the Pinot then drove it straight back to be whole bunch pressed and naturally fermented as a pale rose. The Pinot Noir has beautiful bright red fruit and a lovely energetic acidity.
After natural MLF it aged on lees till we blended it with some Sangiovese Rose and skin fermented Chardonnay to give it structure and texture. An East coast version of our Heliacal Rise with a bit more power and orange hue. The blend is 82% Pinot Noir from the beautiful Grava vineyard Martinborough Wairarapa, 10% Sangiovese and 8% Chardonnay from Osawa vineyard Mangatahi Hawke’s Bay. Both vineyards are BioGro certified organic.
Halcyon Days was born in 2018 in Hawke’s Bay after the meeting of Amy Hopksinson-Styles and Olly Styles.
Deeply enthusiastic about organic agriculture and healthy produce, Amy grew up on the land in regional NZ and has an uncle in Hawke's Bay who is a winemaker. At the age of 23, and straight out of her winemaking degree, Amy was offered a position to establish a brand new winery in Castilla-Leon for American company Jorge Ordonez Selections. It was a dream opportunity, so Amy moved to Spain, built a brand new winery in the tiny, remote village of Villanueva de Campean and set about sourcing fruit from the pre-phylloxera tempranillo vineyards the area is famous for.
Olly Styles is a wine writer who grew up in Oxfordshire and has also completed a winemaking degree. He and Amy met in London and the pair returned from Spain to live in New Zealand in early 2012. They now live in Hawke's Bay and have two wonderful boys.