Winemaking

The grapes for this wine are carefully hand-harvested from our stunning Whenua Matua vineyard in Nelson, before being transported to our modern winey located in Marlborough’s Awatere Valley. Once at the winery, the whole clusters are gently pressed without destemming - allowing us to retrieve bright, pure juice with minimal phenolic extraction from the grapes skins and seeds. After settling and racking, clear juice is fermented entirely in stainless steel tanks with a strain of yeast specifically selected for its highly aromatic properties. Fermentation was long and cool, with the ferment taking around 36 days before the perfect balance of sweetness, acidity, phenolics and alcohol was deemed to be reached, at which point the fermentation stopped by cooling. Post-fermentation the wine was aged on yeast lees for six weeks – with regular stirring during this time to build texture, month-feel and complexity. The wine was blended in late June before being stabilised and then cross-flow filtered (without any fining deemed necessary)and was ready for bottling in mid-July, enabling us to capture the wine’s youth and freshness.

Viticulture

A warm spring following on from a wettish winter provided a strong start to the 2014/2015 growing season. Bud burst occurred as expected in the second week of September, followed by a period of rapid growth before cooler weather in November slowed the activity in the vines right down. Cool and damp conditions over flowering resulted in a much lighter fruit set than expected throughout the many blocks including the Pinot Gris. Shot and fruit thinning was kept to a minimum due to the lighter crops, however some fruit thinning was required to avoid bunched overlapping and to improve air circulation and increase fruit exposure – witch was further enhanced by using sheep to leaf pluck around the fruiting zone. Drought conditions from January meant that unlike most years we were unable to dry farm, and the blocks had to be irrigated. Meticulous vine management from our vineyard team kept the fruit disease free, despite high pressure caused by mild night temperatures and high dew fall. Harvest started much earlier than usual, with the first Pinot Gris harvested on the 19th March. Generally yields were disappointingly light, however flavours were outstanding, and excellent overall ripeness throughout the vineyard was achieved.

Analysis

Vintage: 2015

Alcohol: 13.5%

pH: 3.17

T/A: 5.9 g/L

R.S: 15.0 g/L