Tasting Notes

Bright Ruby

Rich red berries and ripe plum mingle with the subtle spicy

Raspberry and black cherry flavours abound with a touch of plum. These flavours integrate with the spicy oak and fine tannins. A long seductive finish is enjoyed.

This is a young wine with much potential. The flavours will continue to integrate and develop during its life. The fresh and very varietal Pinot Noir characters will continue to be prevalent and enjoyed.

The fruit for this wine comes from two different vineyard sites. The Brown vineyard is on a cool site with more river silt and sandy soils where as the Kernick vineyard is a warm site on stony Rapaura soils. The two sites offer quite unique flavours which complement well together. Harvested almost a week apart the two parcels were treated very similar. After a cool morning harvest the grapes were transported to the winery to be processed quickly and cooled. During a 5 day cold soak each tank was hand plunged up to 5 times a day to extract colour and flavour from the berries without extracting harsh phenolics. The must was then inoculated with selected yeasts for fermentation. Once almost dry the wine was pressed off skins and transferred to a combination of once used and new French oak for malolactic fermentation and a stay of almost 10 months.

Matt Thomson and Alana McGettigan

pH: 3.46
TA: 6.2
RS: 2.0
Alc: 13.13

23rd January 2009