Black Estate Home Pinot Noir 2019 - Vintage

12.5%abv | Waipara, Canterbury

Deep crimson hue. Fresh and complex aromas of wild forest berry’s, sandalwood, and humid earth. Rich red and black fruits with Silky mouth coating tannins emerging that gradually melt revealing a ne and persistent mineral nish. The balance gives a clear impression of the soft, fertile, and highly mineralised sedimentary clay soils of the Home Vineyard. This is an unltered wine with small amounts of sediment. Please allow the bottle to stand and settle before pouring. Decanting will allow maximum expression of aroma and purity of fruit to emerge. Drink now to 2030

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Vineyard:

This Black Estate Home Pinot Noir was grown on our 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 un-grafted Pinot Noir vines are predominantly 10-5 clone and were planted in 1994 at a vine density of 1841 vines per hectare. The new planting completed in 2011 has 2.0ha planted at 6177 vine/ha with 115, 667, 828, 943, Abel, and UCD5 clones. Organic and biodynamic farming practices have been used since 2010. Home Vineyard became fully certied organic with BioGro in March 2017.

Season:

Early spring rainfall and moderate temperatures meant vines grew evenly though out our vineyards from around the spring equinox in late September. Night time temperatures remained above zero preventing frost damage for the third spring in a row. Rapid vegetative growth kept our vineyard team busy with shoot thinning, cultivation, and organic spray rounds with short intervals. Cool wet weather through owering at the end of November effected owering and fruit set. By the summer solstice in late December it was clear that yields would be low and bunch and berry size would be small. Warm dry conditions in January and February slowed vegetative growth and ripened fruit. Settled conditions in March allowed an early start to harvest where hand harvested fruit was ripe and clean with low disease pressure and optimal ripeness. While yields were very low quality across all varieties was exceptional.

Fermentation:

Hand harvested fruit was 65% de-stemmed without crushing giving an average of 75% whole berry. Inoculated using vineyard derived yeast the wine fermented for 28 days in 0.5 to 2.5 ton open top fermenters. The vats were plunged using hand and foot two times per day during the peak of ferment. Each vat was pressed individually using a basket press. The wines were matured in 228L and 500L French Barrels for 12 months, 0% were new. The wine was then racked from barrel, blended and settled in tank for 6 months and then bottled without ning or ltration. Sulphites added.