Impeccable timing spells perfection

Abbey Cellars goes for high premium quality wines. Photo / Warren Buckland

Impeccable timing spells perfection Summer is about relaxing with friends and maybe enjoying a glass of wine. Hawke’s Bay is known for its fine wines. In this summer series, Roger Moroney profiles our best-known wineries

When you cast eyes upon the single estate boutique winery Abbey Cellars you realise it is not just a name plucked out of the blue.

The beautiful polished timbers and startling architecture of well, abbey-like windows and fittings, is really something to behold and tells you that Jan and Warren Haworth were not prepared to enter the world of winemaking until they were good and ready.

The winery is specially designed and built to their specification of wanting something unique in the form of a gothic abbey - but with the modern touches of course.

So why an abbey?

The couple said it was inspired by many years of travel and developing a fondness for churches, great cathedrals and, of course, abbeys from times passed by.

"For us the feelings invoked by these beautiful buildings of the past, the beauty, mystery tradition and romance, are not dissimilar to what we can draw from a fine glass of wine."

The Haworths had long enjoyed a fine wine and equally embraced the traditions of the world of wine.

And so they decided to join that world and 12 years ago cast their eyes across the landscape of Bridge Pa, in what is now termed the Bridge Pa Triangle.

It was a region where the ground was composed of silted red metal soils which they recognised as being a fine component to creating fine wines.

The soils of the triangle create an appealing fruit and spices touch to wines.

Abbey Cellars goes for smaller volumes of high-premium quality wines, the fruit all hand-picked and the resulting highly acclaimed rich reds are given their development time in oak barrels.

It must be absolutely right.

The whole tasting experience is, indeed, an experience given the spectacular surroundings, and one has to smile at the fitting labels.

Like "Cardinal" Cabernet Sauvignon, the "Bishop" Merlot, the "Prophet" Cabernet Blend and the "Temptation" Malbec.

As they say at Abbey Cellars ... classic wines made with soul.

CHECK OUT
Abbey Cellars, Maraeakakaho Rd, Hastings
Cellar Door: Summer (October to April) daily 10.30am to 5pm; winter (May to September) Friday and Saturday 11am to 4pm
Taste: The 2009 "Bishop" Merlot
• sales@abbeycellars.com