Black Estate Home Waipara Pinot Noir 2020

Description

• French oak
• Dark plum
• Cinnamon
• Unfiltered

"An intense youthful bouquet with a core pf pinosity and power. Aromas of fresh red berry fruit and violets precede aromas of spice and barrel toast qualities. Complex, taut and youthful on the palate, a wine that is very new, primary and powerful. It still has a wonderful core of pinosity on the palate with textures of ripe chalky tannins and medium++ acidity. Delicious and fresh, fruity and long. Best drinking from 2024 through 2034+. Fantastic potential and a wine to invest in" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Aug 2022

Deep ruby hue. Aromas of dark plum, violets, black olive, woody herbs, cinnamon, and earth. The palate has density and weight typical of Pinot Noirs from the Home vineyard with emerging silky fruit flavours and a persistent mineral finish. This is an unfiltered 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.

This Black Estate Home Pinot Noir was grown on the 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 certified organic with BioGro in March 2017.

Winter and early spring rainfalls and moderate temperatures meant vines grew evenly though out our vineyards from around the spring equinox in late September. Frost incidence was moderate keeping us watchful in October and November with the majority of our vineyards avoiding frost damage. Rapid vegetative growth kept our vineyard team busy with shoot thinning, cultivation, and organic spray rounds with short intervals. Weather at flowering was favourable for Pinot Noir. 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. Mid way through harvest we closed our restaurant and the entire Black Estate team was able to work together to ensure our harvest was completed successfully. Thanks to them we were able to harvest some of the highest quality fruit ever seen at Black Estate.

Hand harvested fruit was 95% de-stemmed without crushing giving an average of 70% whole berry. Inoculated using vineyard derived yeast the wine fermented for 28 days in 2.0 to 2.5 ton open top fermenters. The vats were plunged using hand and foot one to 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 2 months and then bottled without fining or filtration.

Sulphites added.