Ceres Composition Central Otago Pinot Noir 2018

Description

• French oak
• Dark berry
• Wild herb
• Fine tannins

Briary dark berry, savoury dried herb with garrigue notes decorate this elegant Pinot Noir. It presents a good texture through the palate with finely structured tannins while a graphite note appears through structure then flows to wild herb and savoury blackberry re-emerges.

Ceres Bannockburn Pinot Noir is made up of fruit from 2 vineyards in the sub-region of Bannockburn. Inlet Vineyard is situated on a river terrace above the Bannockburn inlet. Planted 2002. The soils are loess ranging from 200—600mm on top of deep clay gravels, around 160,000 years old. On an elevation of 225—245m. 5.25 ha. Black Rabbit Vineyard is situated on Renshaw Ridge above the Bannockburn inlet. Ancient geology ranging from 4—400 million years old. The site is a steep North East facing slope with windblown schist loess over bedrock schist. On an elevation of 250—315m. 3.46 ha.

A warm start to the season saw an earlier than normal bud burst and a lack of any damaging frosts.  An excellent calm, warm period of weather during flowering and fruitset meant a decent crop was set.  As the summer evolved it became clear that the months of November to January were setting records for how dry and hot they were. The grapes were harvested starting in mid March and after a compressed harvest all the grapes were in the winery by mid April.  The fruit was in excellent condition and full of flavour.

The wine is a blend of 68% Inlet Vineyard and 32% Black Rabbit Vineyard. The  fruit spent 28 days on skins; 9 days cold soak, 8 days in ferment, 11 days post ferment. It spent 12 months in barrel prior to a natural malolactic fermentation. The wine was filtered but not fined prior to bottling in May 2018.