Following his departure from the chief winemaker role at Villa Maria, Grant Edmonds and his wife Sue established Redmetal Vineyards with vines on Marekakaho Road in the Bridge Pa Triangle district producing their first wines with the 1996 vintage. The vineyard devoted to Merlot with Cabernet Franc in support gained critical acclaim. I am pleased to say that during my time in retail at Regional Wines, we had a great relationship and sales soared. However Grant got the call up to assist the Avery family to set up and run Sileni Estates next door. The exponential growth of Sileni Estates meant that the Redmetal Vineyards brand was put on the backburner.
However over the years, the value of the Redmetal Vineyards brand has been recognised again, with the wines coming under the Sileni Estates distribution arm. Grant and Sue have reinvested back into the vineyard and winemaking, with some assistance from Bron Davies for a while, and now, Grant has devoted the time to be hands-on in the making of the wines. The Edmonds have kept abreast of the developments in the New Zealand wine scene, and the 7 ha vineyard planted predominantly to Merlot with Cabernet Franc, has 1.4 ha of Syrah, yielding fruit in 2009, but as a commercial proposition with the 2012 vintage. There is also 0.6 ha of Albarino, which gave a first crop in 2015. The Edmonds are very pleased with these changes. Here, I review the new 2017 Albarino and Syrah, the 2016 Merlot/Cabernet Franc and ‘Basket Press’ Merlot/Cabernet Franc. www.redmetalvineyards.co.nz
