An historically warm vintage has resulted in slightly lighter on it’s feet Retrospect. Classic structure, length and depth from the chalk heavy clay soils combines with florals of rose petal, red, blue and black fruits, and a hint of Middle Eastern spice. Silky tannins and a line of citrus like acidity lead to a energetic and long finish.
“Gorgeous aromas of dried strawberry and cedar with some dried flowers follow through to a full body with fine and polished tannins that give the wine tension and focus. Velvety tannins with a creamy finish. Spicy, chocolatey and nutty in the finish. Sexy and seductive. Single parcel. Clone 115. Drink or hold.” James Sucking, 97 points.
This carefully cellared reserve wine is only released a minimum of five years after harvest. It comes from a tiny parcel in our Home Vineyard, grown and made to showcase our unique site with the benefit of time. Stored perfectly until release, this wine is open and engaging but will certainly reward patience collectors with further cellaring.
The Past—the dark unfathom’d retrospect!
The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows!
The past—the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
(As a projectile form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps on,
So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)
Walt Whitman, 1819 – 1892. “Passage to India”
Winemaker’s Notes
Since the first release in 2010, this Pinot Noir has been sourced exclusively from the same parcel on our small Home Vineyard site up in the hills of Bendigo sub-region, Central Otago.
The vineyard sits on a high elevation (320 – 390m), steep glacial terrace high above the valley floor. The site features some of the oldest vineyard soils in the valley with the formation of the terrace occurring approximately 650K years ago. The soil age and dry Central Otago climate have combined to create the unusual clay and pedogenic lime soil structure. Beneath layers of clay at a depth of 50cm in this parcel sits a thick layer of chalk. The 7.5ha site was prepared and planted between 1999-2001 and the parcel of Pinot Noir for this wine is a single clone at the eastern end of the steep front face. Full organic certification (Biogro) was completed prior to the 2018 vintage.
A strong focus on viticulture is the foundation of the winemaking approach. Yields are consistently managed to 30-35hl/ha or approximately 4ton/ha.
The handpicked fruit is destemmed and fermented using only indigenous ‘wild’ yeast. A key feature of our vinification is extremely low extraction, all our small open top tanks are only hand-plunged once during fermentation. The wine then spends 17 months in barrel (35% new) and undergoes indigenous malolactic fermentation. The wine is bottled unfiltered under Diam cork.
This wine is carefully cellared after bottling and only released a minimum of 5 years after vintage. All bottles are hand-numbered, and wax dipped. Drinking well with decanting on release, this wine will continue to reward collectors for 10+ years from vintage.
