Description

Recommended food pairings: This full and flavoursome Pinot Noir makes a versatile accompaniment to a great variety of foods. It would be delightful with grilled tuna or barbecued game meat served with char-grilled Mediterranean vegetables.

Growing Conditions: Pinot Noir has its origins in eastern France where it is responsible for the region’s famed red wines. It can be a temperamental and frustrating variety. Ripening early and low yielding, it is susceptible to excessive heat and cold and prone to large clonal variations. Pinot Noir is very sensitive to overcropping and vines with excessive crops struggle to ripen their grapes.

Winemaker: Tom Wallace

Winemaking notes: The majority of this wine was destemmed into small open top stainless steel fermenters. Here they generally cold soak on skins for 5-7 days, before natural yeast start fermentation. Ferments are run up to 30 degrees and hand plunged regularly. A smaller component was 100% whole bunch fermented with wild yeast in the vineyard. It was plunged in the traditional way of foot treading. Post ferment the wine is separated from the skins with a traditional French basket press, and after 24 hours settling they are run to French oak barriques for maturation, of which 15% are new. In Spring the barrels warm up and go through Malolactic fermentation. After 10 months in barrel, each individual block is sampled and only the best are identified, blending is then undertaken in the winery, and the two clones chosen in 2018 were D4V2 and 115. The wine finished with an Alcohol of 14.0%, a TA of 6.4g/L and pH of 3.42.