Mammoth Untouched Nelson Pinot Noir 2015

Description

Dark red fruit and an inky, savoury texture that suggests this is a Pinot Noir for the long-run, which will unfurl more of its dark, brooding mysteries with careful cellaring.

What if you eliminate as many winemaking inputs as possible? No de-stemming, no extraneous additions, no cap management, no new oak, no fining and no filtration. The process broken down to just three inputs by the winemaker: When to pick, when to press, when to bottle. In implementing this idea Mammoth wines quieten the voice of man and hear the soft songs of the site and season.

The Mammoth wines are sourced from two of the very best single-vineyard sites in Upper Moutere, but the winemaking is what really sets these tiny-production wines apart. Michael is an experimentalist, unafraid of rattling cages and challenging traditional ideas about wine and how it should be produced – from using acacia rather than oak to the bespoke cigar-shaped puncheons in which these wines are matured to use of carbonic maceration to concentrate the fruit, there is nothing staid or dull about these wines, and they can’t be mistaken for anybody else’s handiwork. Annual production is strictly limited to ensure quality.