• Fresh red berries
• Crisp & dry
• 100% Pinot Noir grapes

The palate has an elegant structure with a textural, juicy mid-palate and a refreshingly dry finish. Made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes this Rosé has an intense flavour that is perfectly suited to the style the winemakers want to achieve.

The 2019 vintage proved to be the winemakers earliest finish ever, which also fits in with their earliest start by five days, starting on March 7th. Strangely enough, although it was the earliest vintage it was definitely not the warmest. The winemaker will, however, remember this harvest as one of the best, with excellent fruit quality and ideal weather conditions. This vintage can be defined by a number of characteristics, starting with lower rainfall. From Christmas Day until the end of harvest and overall we received only 75% of their normal rain through the entire growing period and presented smaller berries, especially in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but also in Sauvignon. This was caused predominantly by some rainfall at flowering in December, meaning the pollen fell to the ground and did not fertilise all of the flowers. Pinot was hit very hard and we were down nearly 50% but also the Sauvignon berries were about 30% smaller than last year. With no rain there was hardly any Botrytis inoculum around and the fruit was the cleanest we have seen in a number of years. This was also helped by the warmer days, especially since the start of January where the deviation from average growing degree days really kicked in.

The wine comes from Pinot Noir grapes selected from two parcels in the Wairau Valley which are located in the cooler western end. Picked purposely for Rosé from low-cropping vines the juice was pressed off immediately to minimise time on skins and left to settle. Once settled the juice was fermented through to dryness at cool temperatures to retain the more delicate fruit characters. The focus with this wine is to provide a drink that has texture and depth, rather than focusing solely on primary fruit notes. Mahi want a wine that satisfies across the palate and employ a number of techniques to achieve this. A short time on lees has helped fill the mid-palate while the absence of sugar gives the palate freshness and length that means it works perfectly with food.