Our Wines

Size: 750ml
Alcohol: 12.7%
156 dozen produced, 0 remaining

Tasting Notes

A brick-red colour - lighter than previous Pinots due to the late season. Cherries and smoke, earthy briar, rosemary and charcuterie. A savoury nose with hints of white pepper underlying the fruit. On the palate soft tannins and dark cherries with a touch of dark chocolate.

Ratings

87 Halliday

Food Matching

Perfect with cassoulet, barbequed quail or any smoked meat. Venison, duck or kangaroo loin or matched with a classic boeuf bourgignon.

Viticulture

Vintage 2017 had the wettest Spring we have ever experienced. 500mm of rain in the months of June, July and August were followed by a record 255mm in September - the month we would usually see things starting to dry out. Our vines burst and as things warmed up the incessant rain led to several Downy Mildew primary events which meant we needed to spray. The ground was far too wet for a tractor so we put our first two sprays on using a helicopter (which took about 15 minutes compared to my seven odd hours in the tractor!) The growing season continued to be wetter than usual and disease pressure was high. Thankfully February and March saw much drier and warmer weather which helped ripen our fruit and kill off any remaining oil spots. The wet and cold start meant we harvested almost a month later than usual on the 5th April. Having trialled a new pruning method in block 3 we were thrilled to finally get a decent yield of 7.4 tonnes from our "problem child" block, whilst block 2 gave us a good yield as always.

Winemaking

Was destemmed but not crushed to open fermenters and held at 10 degrees for 3 x days before allowing to naturally warmup before being inoculated with a Burgundian yeast isolate. The ferment was managed by a gentle plunge twice a day and allowed to ferment at natural ambient temperatures between 22-32 degrees, cooling was only used in peak ferment to cool back to 32 degrees. It was air pulsed to mix during peak ferment once per day and plunged once to maximize extraction of colour and tannin without being over extractive. It was pressed after 10 days on skins and transferred straight to 100% 1, 2 and 3 year old French oak. It underwent secondary ferment in barrel and was aged on lees and matured in oak for 10 months before being transferred to stainless tank for clarification and bottling. Winemaker: Greg Clack