Black Estate Damsteep Waipara Riesling 2019

Description

• Dry style
• Orange blossom
• Wild honey
• Vibrant finish

This dry Riesling has fresh and complex aromas of lime, orange blossom, and wild honey. The palate is dense and grounded, becoming full with time and once again has salivating white rock minerals. Vibrant long and electric. This wine is un-fined and unfiltered so a fine sediment may form in the bottle. Decanting could be considered. Drink now to 2028.

Early spring rainfall and moderate temperatures meant vines grew evenly though out in their 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 their vineyard team busy with shoot thinning, cultivation, and organic spray rounds with short intervals. Cool wet weather through flowering at the end of November effected flowering and fruit set in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, however Riesling flowered later and was able to set well. 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.

Fruit for this Riesling is sourced from the Damsteep Vineyard which is located in the north east of Waipara Valley at the foot of the Omihi saddle in North Canterbury. This hillside vineyard was planted in 1999 on clay and limestone rich soils. The soils in the Riesling vineyard are very dense clay brown to orange in colour and inter bedded with sandstones and subordinate limestone horizons. This 2.2 hectare hillside vineyard has a vine density of more than 5000 vine per hectare and is planted with GM110, GM198 and GM239 clones on 101-14 rootstock. It is certified organic with BioGro.

62 percent foot crushed with up to 24 hours skin soak. Whole bunch pressed using a long and gentle press cycle. Fermented without settling the juice in small stainless steel tanks and old 500L barrels (42%). Yeast used for fermentation was propagated from a Damsteep vineyard starter. Fermentation lasted for 3 months at between 10- and 18 degrees centigrade then the wine matured on lees for a further 6 months. The parcels were then combined in tank, sulphites added then bottled without fining or filtration.