Mahi Marlborough Pinot Gris 2020

Description

• Dry style
• Ripe peach
• Nectarine
• Creamy & textural

Characters from this special vineyard in Ward give this Pinot Gris complexity and depth. The palate has an elegant structure with a creamy, textural mid-palate and a long finish.

Mahi, meaning ‘our work, our craft’, began in 2001, fulfilling a dream of their. After 15 vintages it was time to do their own thing. With a strong focus on single-vineyard wines, and now backed up by a series of premium regional wines from Marlborough, the idea behind Mahi is to respect and promote the individuality of the various vineyards. The Mahi symbol represents the strength, life and growth of the native New Zealand frond (fern), with the understanding that wine should never be rushed to bottle, respecting its ability to evolve naturally over time.

This year, which was the 20th vintage of Mahi, started two weeks later than 2019, on March 20, but finished only one day later, with their last lot of fruit coming in on April 9, so for Mahi it was one of their most condensed vintages. A vintage they will never forget as picking and winemaking were partly dictated by Covid-19. While it was difficult to work the ‘virus vintage’ the overall vintage was saved by having such great growing and picking weather. Rainfall through the period of December 21 through to April 7 was only 20mm, which is a record low over that essential period for us and the temperatures through the season were the closest that we have had to the ‘normal’ for quite a few years. The cooler ripening compared to some recent warmer years has given them some intense fruit flavours, nice acidities and elegant structures. Again this year they had a great multi-cultural team with people from China, India, the US, Ireland and NZ, and even though they didn’t see as much of each other as normal it worked well and is definitely not a vintage they will forget.

Their Marlborough Pinot Gris comes from one vineyard located just outside the township of Ward in the Awatere Valley. It is owned and managed by Sara Davies and Andrew Craig. The fruit was machine-picked to bin so maceration was minimised and a portion of this juice was barrel-fermented in older French oak to give greater weight, though ensuring that wood is not evident on the nose. The balance of the wine was fermented cool to retain the fruit characters that come from this special vineyard. The final blend this year was made solely from free-run juice, as they feel it gives a more elegant and subtle wine, especially with Pinot Gris, that has quite ‘grey’ coloured skins and is inherently quite tannic.

Food Pairing: Match with a seafood platter & Asian-spiced chicken drumsticks.