Mt Difficulty Roaring Meg Central Otago Pinot Noir 2024

Description

Blackberry, Oak, Spice

Bright strawberry and cherry aromas with hints of smoke and spice. Lush and ripe on the palate, showing red berry, plum, and lapin cherry flavours. Fine tannins and gentle oak add balance and complexity. A classic Central Otago Pinot Noir.

The grapes for this wine come from our Cromwell basin vineyards managed by our dedicated viticultural team. The addition of fruit from our Bendigo vineyard has lent a powerful, darker edge to this vintage.

2024 continued a string of successful vintages in Central Otago. Dominated by a shift into an El Nino weather pattern, we experienced a very warm and dry growing season. There was very benign conditions at fl owering to give us excellent yield potential, before the wind kicked in from November through January, keeping disease pressure low. While soil moisture levels were approaching drought levels, we manged to keep the vines vital through this period, which has given is very small berries, and concentrated, powerful wines with lovely balanced acidity.

The grapes were both machine and hand harvested, before destemming to enhance the natural fruit characters of Pinot Noir from the Cromwell Basin. The grapes stayed in the fermenter on average for a total of 25 days, with temperatures peaking at 28 - 30°C. The wine was plunged once daily both during pre-fermentation and twice during fermentation. Post-fermentation the wine was left to extract with minimal further punch downs. Once tannins were balanced, the wine was pressed and left to settle in tank for a week before barrelling down to French oak, 15% of which was fi rst fi ll, where it resided on lees for 10 months. It underwent malolactic fermentation during early spring, was racked out of barrel in early-summer prior to bottling.