Esk Valley Artisanal Malbec Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon

Built in 1933 by Englishman Robert Bird who produced fortified wine from the 1930s through to the 1970s (under the name Glenvale) until the Esk Valley name was created for a premium range of table wines.

These days the Esk Valley name is owned by the Indevin group, New Zealand’s largest wine grower and producer. And when you operate on the size on the scale these guys do you have access to incredible vineyards, growers, quality fruit and top winemakers.

The Esk Valley Artisanal range is a fine wine range that’s been given a bit of what they used to like to calling “the Gordon Russell treatment”. Gordon was Esk Valley chief winemaker for 30 years and an absolute legend on the scene. The Artisanal range allowed one of NZ’s true greats in winemaking to roll up his sleeves and craft seriously good value wines true to variety and style. In this case we’re talking about a Malbec dominated, Bordeaux style red using fruit from the world famous Gimblett Gravels.

The fruit for this 2025 vintage (a cracker in the Hawke’s Bay by the way) comes from a single vineyard (and a bloody good one at that) called the Omahu Gravels vineyard in the Gimblett Gravels. The final blend was made up of 41% Malbec, 35% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon.

It’s rich, jammy, plummy Malbec blended with soft, plush, fruity Merlot and and Cabernet Sauvignon for structure and back bone to the red along with those red fruit and dried herb flavours.

This is what the Esk Valley crew had to say about this latest 2025 vintage – “This Malbec led blend displays dark colour and seductive fruit with complexing Christmas cake spice notes. On the palate it is a medley of rich fruit flavours and dried herbs supported by a generous mouthfeel and age-worthy tannins. This is a full bodied and complex wine, and an ideal accompaniment to red meat dishes.”