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Winemaker Note
“Clear & bright, nice mellow gold colour. I love aromatic whites! Great Gris notes of white fleshed pear, apricot, white spring florals, musk stick and vanilla pod. Juicy and generously flavoured, abundant white fleshed stone fruits, a mineral feel too with a super smooth almost silken texture. Quite seamless with lovely balanced acidity. Lush finish. Drink now and all summer long.”
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Pulling off a viable crop is a tricky task even when the weather is playing along. Some seasons the gods are not smiling though and it these seasons which feel like they are sent to test us!
The 21/22 spring was strongly influenced by a strong La Nina cycle which created frequent NE weather events across the East Coast of the North Island bringing high humidity and frequent rain events, conditions which are less than ideal for grape farming; Pinot Noir in particular. Our vineyard team did an amazing job in highly challenging conditions to get us to a great position in Mid – January where it looked like an excellent crop was on the cards, plus the crucial period of flowering in late November turned out to be near perfect for the task. It felt like the region as a whole had somehow pulled off a miracle!
The good vibes were short lived unfortunately when a rainfall event of biblical proportions struck the region in the 2nd week of February, around a third of annual rainfall fell over two days! Pinot Noir vineyards on the terrace, particularly those with Dijon clones were worst affected with widespread berry collapse followed by shrivel. Botrytis was also a very real threat and swept through many blocks making picking near impossible. Producers like us with sites off the terrace and a higher portion of the later ripening Pinot clones; Abel, 10/5 for example, certainly fared better. White varieties, because they are later ripening , were largely unaffected and quality across the board quality was high, ditto for Syrah.
Looking at the wines 6 -7 months on I am extremely happy with what I see. It is the most satisfying to produce great wines in difficult years.
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Grown over three different blocks at our Blue Rock Vineyard. This season all blocks were picked at the same time and all fruit was destemmed and crushed into the press where it was allowed a nice long maceration on skins in order to extract plenty of the nice ripe phenolics and tannins present in the fruit this vintage; not always the case, but definitely so in 2022!
Acidity was nice and fresh as well. Following a nice long pressing a potion of the juice was sent to seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation, with the balance of the juice fermented long and cool in a temperature controlled stainless steel tank. Following 6 months on lees both portions were blended before gentle filtration prior to bottling in the Spring.
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Very versatile but I’m thinking about prosciutto and (proper) mozzarella pizza right now.
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pH 3.38
TA 6.0 g/L
RS 6 g/L
Alc 13.5 %
Bottled Sep 22
