Black Estate Home Chenin Blanc 2023

12%abv | Waipara, Canterbury

Grown on the clay slopes of our Home Vineyard, the vines are now 12 years old.

Smells of Meyer Lemon, camomile, button mushrooms, straw, mountain beech honey, and lanolin. The palate is bright, saline, complex and powerful with flavours of nacho pear, blackcurrant leaf, and white peach.

This is an unfiltered and un-sulphured wine with small amounts of sediment. Please allow the bottle to stand and settle before carefully decanting. This will allow maximum expression of aroma and purity of fruit to emerge.   Drink now to 2035.

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Vineyard:

The 2023 Black Estate Home Chenin Blanc was grown on our 12 hectare Home Vineyard located 6 kilometres north east of the Waipara Junction, in the Omihi sub-district of Waipara Valley, North Canterbury. This is a north facing sedimentary clay fan on a gentle hill side slope. The soils are mainly Awapuni clay with calcium carbonate deposits. The Chenin Blanc vineyard that sits in the belly of the slope above the original vineyard is 0.5 hectares. Chenin Blanc clones 220 and 880 grow on root stock and were planted at 6133 vines per hectare in 2011 by the Naish Family.

Season:

Season Winter and early spring rainfalls meant vines started the growing season in spring well. We did frost ght but were able to avoid frost damage. Timing of bud burst and owering ran seven to ten days later than previous seasons but in line the the long term average. Buds burst occurred at the Home Block around the Spring equinox. Shoot growth was even across the block and kept the eld team busy with hand weeding, shoot thinning, and then wire lifting. Post owering we experienced higher humidity levels than normal which averaged 82% through the normally dry December, January, and February months. Thorough leaf removal around the fruit zone was undertaken through the blocks and spray intervals were tightened up to manage the potentially high disease pressure from powdery mildew. Harvest commenced in mid March where our eld team carefully hand harvested and sorted each bunch of fruit to ensure the best possible avours of the season could be captured. A machine harvester was used where weather threatened the crop. We are relieved and happy to savour every wine from this unique and challenging season.

Fermentation:

Whole bunch pressed over 4 hours in a bag press. Juice drained to tank settled for 12 hours and then transferred to 600L Demi Muid barrels. Fermented using a Home Vineyard yeast starter. 100% barrel fermentation and maturation for 10 months. 100% Malolactic fermentation. Bottled un-ned and unltered with no added sulphites.