With 120 years of winemaking excellence under their belt, Church Road have much to celebrate. We raise a toast to them and chief winemaker Chris Scott for the release of yet another stellar line-up of TOM wines.

Silence descends as a long table of some of the country’s best wine writers, in the gorgeous setting of Church Road winery in the Hawke’s Bay, take their first sips of the highly anticipated Church Road TOM 2014 wines.

While they remain poker-faced, studiously writing up their notes, this wine lover couldn’t help but blurt out something along the lines of “wow”. Because these are seriously delicious wines.

Chris Scott, chief winemaker for Church Road, explains that TOM wines are only made in the best vintages and “the 2014 season had excellent amounts of rainfall over summer and a long, dry autumn which allowed exceptional flavours and ripeness to develop”.

The TOM Chardonnay, Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah 2014s are set before us with a matching canape and every mouthful is gustatory sensation. This is special occasion wine and so it is fitting that Church Road celebrates its 120th anniversary in 2017, along with the release of the TOM 2014 – named in honour of Hawke’s Bay winemaking icon Tom McDonald.

They’re designed to age gracefully but having tasted how special they are right now, we say it’ll be a challenge to leave them unopened.

To learn more about Church Road, see their website here.