Two Paddocks Estate Central Otago Pinot Noir 2016

Description

"A blend of the Bannockburn, Earnscleugh and Gibbston vineyards. This leads with ripe sweet cherry-berry fruit aromas ahead of a spicy and meaty background. Plenty of youthful appeal. The palate is succulent and packed with vibrant flesh, attractive red cherry fruit and plenty of lithe, juicy tannins. Drink now" Nick Stock, JamesSuckling.com, Nov 2017

"Fresh and juicy, featuring cherry and raspberry flavors that are bright and fragrant, with details of toasted rye, dried lavender and sarsaparilla, set on a dense, tight body. Shows plenty of concentration and spicy details that linger. This may become more expressive with short-term cellaring. Drink now through 2030" MaryAnn Worobiec, Wine Spectator, Dec 2017

"A blend of three sites (Bannockburn, Earnscleugh and Gibbston), the 2016 Pinot Noir reflects those disparate characters. Some herbal notes contrast with ripe notes of dark plum, providing an enervating tension. It's medium to full-bodied, with a smooth texture and tart, silky finish" The Wine Advocate, Joe Czerwinski Feb 2018

Aromatically this wine exhibits dried herb with a dark spice and bramble fruit spectrum, leading to an elegant textural mouthfeel showing minerality, great balance and drive.

The 2016 vintage of this winery's flagship wine was produced from the four Neill family Central Otago vineyards. These small sites are high-density planted in a range of clonal material cropped to under 5 Tonne per hectare with most vineyard practices carried out by hand.

The Two Paddocks 2016 harvest began in April, overall very clean and balanced fruit was achieved from ripening under extended settled warm autumn conditions. After a cool start to the growing season with 18 frost events in 6 weeks, the heat really only arrived after flowering in late December.  Rainfall for the entire 8-month growing season of Sept-Apr was low with only 160mm received in total.  February was the start of the 'big finish', which saw an average temp of 19C for the month.  This flowed into March, April and May, which were all warm, settled and dry. Vintage was extraordinarily compact meaning that all harvesting was over by the 26th of April.  

As in the vineyard, the wine is hand crafted using traditional methods including a 25% whole bunch, indigenous fermentation and hand plunging.  Maturation is in French barriques for 10 months, using a mix of older and new (20%) barrels.