Luna Estate Martinborough Pinot Noir 2023

Description

Cherry, Oak, Spice

"A good example of the variety and style with core aromas and flavours of dark cherry skin and fruit spice, plum and a touch of fruit compote then clove and baking spices reflect the use of some French oak and lees contact. A dry wine on the palate with a nice fruit purity framed by light to moderate tannin impacts and acidity for freshness and drive. Balanced, well made and ready to drink in late 2025 through 2028+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Aug 2025

Pretty, ruby red colour tones. No mistaking the character here! Lifted & aromatic floral and red cherry tells you it’s a Pinot, and the savoury, earthy undertones are classic Martinborough. A deeper sniff reveals some darker tones with a nice hit of classy oak. A nice, full rich and fat textured big flavoured mouthful. Easy to see why we all love drinking Pinot Noir! Plenty of the good stuff – Red and black cherry, some slightly sour plum and nice bit toasty spice rounding out the finish. Great balance & energy. Easy to love and charming. Cellar if you want to for 5+ years but hard to see it being more delicious than right now!

There is a saying in the wine industry – “There are no bad vintages, just the odd challenging one”. Vintage 2023 here in Martinborough would certainly fit into the challenging category. The now infamous triple dip La Nina certainly lived up to the hype. Persistent rainfall and high temperatures are not conditions that favour grape farmers. It took all of our collective skill and hard work to pull the crop through. Winemaking can be a tough trade and unlike beer or gin makers we only get one shot each year to create our product, and it’s all about the quality of the fruit! If mother nature does not abide then tough luck, you gotta work with what you get. Upon reflection, Vintage 2023, whilst very challenging and far from “classic”, was actually very successful, for us at least. Certainly a tale of two vineyards; our Blue Rock Vineyard performed extremely well and quality was outstanding. Less so our Eclipse vineyard, although there were some excellent pockets, particularly Chardonnay. The biggest take home for me personally was the excellent, never say die attitude of our team. We rallied hard, we doubled down and we never gave up! It is true that adversity builds strength and resilience. Making awesome wine from the tougher seasons is what this job is all about! Bring on the next vintage.

As always, crafted using 100% Estate grown Pinot Noir harvested from both of our vineyards. Majority harvested from the younger vines growing on the clay/limestone hillside of the Blue Rock Vineyard. All fruit was de-stemmed and gently transferred into 6 ton open top temperature controlled stainless steel fermenters. The fruit was chilled down and held for a 5-6day ‘cold soak’ to aid in colour and flavour extraction. Once the cooling was turned off the ferment began as the fruit slowly came up to ambient temperature. Once fermentation is in progress each ‘ferment’ is plunged once or twice daily. Temperature is closely monitored with a peak of around 30 degrees C allowed towards the end of the fermentation. Total maceration time was between 15–30 days before gentle pressing followed by oak maturation for 10 months. Bottled following minimal fining and gentle filtration. Contains no animal products.

Food Pairing: Pork cotoletta, Polenta chips & orange and radicchio salad.