Te Mata Coleraine Cabernet Merlot 2023
Te Mata Coleraine Cabernet Merlot 2023
Te Mata Coleraine Cabernet Merlot 2023

Te Mata Coleraine Cabernet Merlot 2023

CellarRed wineNew Zealand98 Points - The Wine AdvocateCorkNew release

A ‘Bordeaux blend’ but make it New Zealand 🇳🇿🍷 

The 2023 Te Mata Coleraine is widely considered New Zealand’s most famous red—powerful, structured, and built to age. 

Crafted from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, this is Hawke’s Bay at its best. Coleraine blends fruit from sustainably farmed sites across the region, showing how regional blending—done right—can produce something world-class. 

Expect cassis, espresso, and spice, wrapped in fine tannins. The palate? Dense and layered with serious concentration yet lifted by freshness that keeps it all in balance. 

With more than 40 vintages behind it, Coleraine has become New Zealand’s answer to Bordeaux—a NZ ‘First Growth’ and one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most collected wines. 

Drink window,2033 to 2038
Historical performance*, New release
Type,Red Wine
Varietals,Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Cabernet Franc
Vintage,2023
ABV,13.5%
Country,New Zealand
Region,Hawke's Bay
Sub region,N/A
Bottle size,750ml
Bottle closure,Cork

*10-year performance (or since release). As at Jan 2025
Data source: WineSearcher
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$147.00

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Critic reviews

What the experts say about this wine

The 2023 Coleraine comprises 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc. This cuvée is not made to a recipe, rather as a selection of the best from each vintage. In 2023, due to the weather induced by Cyclone Gabrielle, which landed in early February (the second or third), the strongest performer was the Cabernet Sauvignon due to bunch architecture, small berries, thick skins and, in this case, the low-vigor rootstocks and the chicory in between the rows. Te Mata invests heavily into research and development in the vineyards, which really assists in a vintage like 2023, which imposes challenges. The elevation in all aspects of this wine from the already tremendously impressive Awatea is significant. Here, the tannins have a finer grain, the fruit is more persistent and the package is far more integrated and seamless. With raspberry, iodine, crushed shells, nori, pressed flowers, new lead pencil, tobacco, bramble and cassis, it is magnificent. Raw cocoa and the gentle and subtle creep of game/gristle/blood and sweet marrow indicate its direction later in life. I love this wine. I think I write that every time I taste it.

This wine lives up to its reputation with this example. Opaque at the core with deep purple hues and a ruby pink rim with ink staining tears. An excellent bouquet of pure blackberry and doris plum scents, layers of black cherry and iron sand earthy qualities. Oak layers in myriad aromas from clove to vanilla and a toasty smoke layer with a sweet lift from new barrel. A stunning wine on the palate, taut and new with firm chalky tannins, backbone of acidity, olive and garrigue with a core of fleshy dark fruit flavours soaking up the new energy from barrel. Layers of baking spice and tobacco with a warmed earth mineral quality. This is the most impressive example of Coleraine to date. Best drinking from 2026 through 2040+. Made with: 57% cabernet sauvignon, 36% merlot and 7% cabernet franc.