Gold Medal: Pinot Noir – it’s NZ's red wine claim to fame.  It’s the wine that has made critics really take note, started taking us kiwis and our Pinot Noir seriously.  There’s no ifs and or buts about this one people, it’s another big hitter from the beautiful Wairarapa, the critics love it, by crikey we rate it too.  Look smart, this one won’t last..

This attractive, soft Pinot Noir shows dark plum and cherry flavours with fragrant fresh hay and cedary oak characters. On the palate, the vibrant cherry flavours come through with a hint of spicy toasty oak and velvety tannins.

This vineyard is planted in several combinations of rootstock and Pinot Noir clones.  For this Pinot Noir, we used the clones of 667, 5, 777, Abel and 113. In the final blend, each clone adds their own character and complexity. The vintage was excellent with warm weather during flowering and a long dry summer with hot days and cool nights - perfect Pinot Noir ripening conditions. This resulted in vines with a balanced crop load and the fruit achieving ideal ripeness. The vineyard blocks selected for this wine recieve additional attention during the growing season with a lot of leaf plucking and shoot positioning done by hand to expose the fruit and ensure optimum ripeness.

In the winery the different batches of fruit are processed separately so that we can see the individual characters on their own. We then add further complexities by incorporating different techniques and yeast combinations. The grapes are cold soaked for between five to seven days and then fermented at about 28-32C. If the fruit is in very good condition still we allow up to 21 days post-ferment on skins before the grapes are pressed off and malolactic fermentation is completed in the tank. The wine is matured in French oak barrels (about 35 per cent are new) for 10 months. The barrels are then each individually tasted before the final blend is confirmed.