Blank Canvas Settlement Marlborough Pinot Noir 2020

Description

Blueberry, Cherry, Oak

This is our second release of the Settlement Vineyard Pinot Noir. It is a classic representation of Pinot Noir from the Omaka with incredible density and power. Ripe blue and red fruits transition seamlessly to an attractive savoury edge of forest floor and sappy aromatic spices. It is an incredibly structured and impressive wine and is built to age.

The vintage to go down in the history books as one of the easiest and exciting from a fruit perspective, but one of the most challenging and stressful because of the Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown. A warm spring and above average rainfall set the growing season up well with an excellent flowering. Drought conditions through summer but moderate temperature meant vines did not become too stressed and fruit was in excellent, clean condition. Overall 2020 provided Pinot Noir with great purity of flavour, balance and precision.

The stunning Settlement Vineyard is in the Omaka Valley microregion of the Southern Valleys. We are lucky enough to be entrusted with a small one-hectare parcel of Clone 77 Pinot Noir. This hillside block, dubbed 'Black Block', is north facing and planted to a high density of 3788 plants/ha on wind-blown loess over clay loams. The vineyard was planted in 2009 and is now BioGro certified and farmed organically. It is caned pruned and VSP trained.

We hand-harvested the Settlement Vineyard Pinot Noir on the 24th March 2020. Two thirds of the handpicked fruit was left as whole clusters while the balance was destemmed and crushed over the top in the open-tank fermenter. The fruit was kept cool until natural fermentation commenced after four days. The tank was hand-plunged throughout its 15-day fermentation period after which we drained and pressed the wine to barrel where it completed natural malolactic fermentation. The oak regime was 100% French oak barriques, all low-toast level (35% new for 12months, with a further 3 months in tank to gently and naturally settle. We bottled the wine without filtration on the 3rd July 2021 and it was released on the 1st November 2022.