Nose
One thing is for sure, it absolutely says “Pinot Noir” on the nose. The fruit aromas are lifted and scented, suggesting strawberries, strawberry jam, cherry, plum and musky notes like quince jelly. Although it’s fresh it is also complex, with the background revealing some quite earthy notes like leather and soil. In addition, there are some restrained, charry oak characters.
Growing Conditions
We had an odd start to the summer of 2013. On 30th November 2012, we had a very intense storm with strong winds and hail doing a significant amount of damage, just about identical to a similar event in the beginning of December 1996. All varieties experienced major losses, although the Pinot Noir got off lightly, being only 30% down. After this rocky start, things improved until by the last 2 days of December we reached 40⁰C. That set the theme for the rest of season, although the mercury didn’t return to quite those levels again and we had warm to hot weather all the way through to the end of February.
No surprise then picking commenced 8 days early on 13th February and ripeness of 13.7⁰ Baume was slightly above average. The fruit condition was good, with no disease or damage and flavours were excellent. Things were all in our favour.
Bottling
25/11/2014
Winemaking
All the fruit was hand-picked, sorted, destemmed and then placed in small, open tanks for fermentation. Each batch was soaked at 8⁰C for 72 hours then seeded with selected yeast strains for fermentation and hand plunged 3 times per day. After 12 days on skins the tanks were drained and pressed and after malolactic fermentation the wine was racked into barrel. All barrels were 225 litre French oak and 14% were new. After 18 months the barrels were blended together and the wine was then sterile filtered and bottled on 25th November, 2014.
Appearance
medium to deep ruby colour.
