Church Road Grand Reserve Central Otago Pinot Noir 2023

Description

Cherry, Floral, Oak

Beautifully fragrant, the wine is built around a core of black cherry and berry fruit, overlaid with beautiful floral and spice notes. The oak is subtle, supporting the wine without dominating the fruit and there is an underlying mineral element. On the palate the wine is medium weight and supple with incredible textural length, combining elegance and fineness with undeniable presence.

Off a single estate in Lowburn situated on a free draining schist terrace just above the lake. This site is relatively warm and sheltered, with the lake helping to moderate the local climate. It has produced a wine with textural ripeness while retaining very good fragrance and typicity. Warmer than average, though not excessively so, 2019 was a good year for Central Otago. Sugar ripeness was behind physiological ripeness with reasonably low brix levels still translating through to excellent flavour, well balanced acidity and ripe, supple tannin. The vines were all pruned to two cane VSP and the crop load was very light, with one extremely small, fist sized, bunch per shoot. The block is a mixture of clones, each bring a different structural element and another layer of aroma and flavour. 32% Clone 5, 25% 115, 15% 10/5, 12% 777, 10% Clone 6 and 7% Abel. The fruit was hand harvested and transported overnight to our winery in Hawke’s Bay.

Food Pairing: The richness and complexity of this Pinot Noir makes it well suited to a variety of meat or game dishes, particularly where savoury flavours abound.