Waipara Hills Equinox Pinot Noir 2016

Description

Red garnet colour in the glass. Juicy red berries with spice on the nose, complimented by floral notes. Full of dark red fruit flavours and spice, combine to deliver an elegant Pinot Noir with rich fruit intensity and a supple texture.

The Spring Equinox marks the first of bud and the Autumnal Equinox signals the time for harvest. The Equinox wines are of limited edition, and lovingly hand crafted to capture the unique essence of the Waipara Valley.

Sourced from The Mound, Deans and Kimball vineyard's in the Waipara Valley, where there is a layer of clay across the soil surface which adds complexity to the wine.

Despite some rainfall in January, 2016 was a stable and warm season with high sunshine hours. March started the typical 'Indian Summer' that followed through into April and May, providing great harvest conditions.

Beautiful ripe bunches were hand picked and destemmed. The must was chilled for a seven day cold soak to extract colour and berry fruit flavours. Fermentation took seven days at peak temperature of 32°C and hand plunged twice daily. Once dry, the wine was left on skins for up to three weeks to buil dstructure from both skin and seed tannin. The wine was then pressed off and settled for 24 hours before going into barrels. In early Spring it went through malolactic fermentation. In February the wine was blended, fined using natural methods and finished for bottling.