Kono Marlborough Pinot Noir 2016

Description

• Ripe red fruit
• Baking spices
• Dry herbs
• French oak

A deep ruby coloured in the glass, this wine displays lifted aromatic layers of cherry, plum and bright floral notes with subtle hints of wild herbs. The palate has layered flavours of ripe red and dark fruit, spice and integrated French oak underpinned by nuances of dry herbs and savoury characteristics. Mid-weight on the palate, this wine is balanced and mouth-filling with refined silky tannins that seamlessly lead to a long and elegant finish.

The grapes for this wine are harvested by a state-of-the-art machine harvester before being transported to our Marlborough winery. Once at the winery small batches from individual blocks are lightly crushed and destemmed into small volume open-top fermenters. The resulting juice is then chilled for a cold soak period of around 7 days before being slowly warmed for fermentation. At the end of fermentation the wine is drained and pressed and then left to mature on oak over the cool winter months. The wine undergoes a natural secondary malolactic fermentation once the weather warms in spring, once complete the wine is blended in tank before being fined and filtered ready for bottling.

The grapes for this wine are sourced from the most stunning vineyards located in the upper South Island of New Zealand; with the majority sourced from the Awatere Valley vineyard in Marlborough. Grapes from a variety of Pinot Noir clones are cropped at low levels with a range of viticultural practices carried out to maximise quality - including shoot thinning, leaf plucking, crop thinning at veraison (green thinning) and quality control at harvest time.