Blackcurrant
Oak
Warm spice

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Man O War Ironclad M/Cab

Name: Man O War Ironclad M/Cab 750ml
SKU: 101251
Price: 49.99 NZD
Availability: InStock

Wine · New Zealand · 750ml · 13%

$49.99each

What it tastes like

A blend of Merlot and Cabernet with blackcurrant, plum and oak spice, finishing firm and elegant.

Blackcurrant
Oak
Warm spice

Additional information

Wine
Style: New Zealand
Origin: 750ml
Size: 13% ABV
Alcohol: 0.8 per bottle
Standard drinks

The story of Man O War Ironclad M/Cab

Ironclad is Man O' War's Bordeaux-style red, a blend from Waiheke and Ponui Islands that leans on Cabernet Franc in recent releases. The fruit comes from dry-grown, wind-sheltered vines on warm clay hillsides, where the days ripen steadily and the nights run cool, and winemaker Duncan McTavish leads a team that has stayed largely the same for more than a decade.

Each parcel is picked by hand and fermented separately on native yeasts in open-top fermenters. After blending, the wine spends about 16 months in 500-litre French oak puncheons. The result is perfumed and fine-grained, with dark cherry, graphite, cedar and dried bay leaf, then blackberry and black plum, and a long finish of cassis, crushed black pepper and a saline edge.

The name honours the 19th-century warships that had iron armour plates bolted onto wooden hulls, a nod to the iron in the clay beneath the vines.

It is approachable now and has the structure to develop over eight to fifteen years. If you open a young bottle, decant it an hour ahead and bring it to the table with rare beef, a mushroom and thyme dish or a piece of hard, aged cheese.