• Dry style
• Orange peel
• Cream soda
• Lingering acidity

"Pale apricot hue, with an unfiltered haze. Seductive, savoury nose with aromas of burnt, blood orange, dried fruit, medicinal notes and toasty vanilla butter. Elegant style, dry and sinewy with abundant character and a firm bitter orange finish. A characterful, well-balanced example within the spectrum of skin-contact wine" NZ Wine Rater, Jun 2022

The colour of the wine comes from the grape skins and the semi-oxidative handling. The 2021 Real McCoy has a shimmering peach hue. There are complex aromas of sea salt and stone fruit (peach and apricot) with zesty orange peel and subtle white blossom. On the palate there are flavours of ripe stone fruit, citrus, and cream soda. The mouthfeel is both creamy and silky with a lovely hint of fine tannin and lingering acidity at the finish. Delicious on its own, the Real McCoy invites many opportunities for food pairing. We have discovered that this is a great wine for cellaring as the evolution is slow and the wine continues to improve with time.

Vintage 2021 is our 7th release of a “skins ferment” Pinot Gris from Gibbston. The combination of this versatile variety with our modern take on an ancient winemaking technique and this beautifully fragrant subregion continues to be a winning one. Experience is also starting to pay dividends. This Valli wine is perhaps the one that most obviously expresses seasonality. Each vintage showcases a consistent, recognizable core that is dressed in intriguingly different vintage characters. The 2021 growing season was naturally low cropping and disease free allowing us to play with different levels of whole cluster in the four ferments. The bone dry wine went through a fill malolactic fermentation and was bottled after 11.5 months in oak. The wine was not filtered so natural sediment may occur. Each year we see a greater sense of place in our Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris and we continue to see our special place in the Real McCoy Orange Pinot Gris. This reinforces everything we believe about sub regionality and expression of site. The Real McCoy also highlights our intention to embrace the beauty and honesty of seasonality.