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PINOT NOIR Canterbury 2006
The Bone Hill Vineyard
This is an exciting new vineyard for us. We believe it has the potential to produce some truly great wines in the future. Adjacent to our home vineyard at Kaituna Valley but on a much steeper slope the vines have perfect inclination to the sun. Rooting depth is controlled by a hard, subsurface pan and the vines are finding a natural balance between shoot growth and crop load. Planted only to the Burgundian clones of Pinot Noir grafted onto low vigour rootstocks. Pruned to a single cane.
2006 was the first vintage for this wine. Complex, powerful wine with poise and elegance. A broad range of aromas from blackberries, plum and red cherry to earth, mineral and forest floor. Rich and full-bodied with a linear palate that builds in power. Silky and sensuous on the palate with delicious warmth, texture and persistence of flavour.
Technical Notes:
First vintage from this new hillside vineyard. A small crop of excellent fruit was hand-harvested from 28 March to 8 April 2006 at 23.1 to 25 °Brix. Fruit was chilled then destemmed and crushed into small batch fermenters for five days of cold maceration. A range of cultured yeasts were used in fermentation and a peak temperature of 33°C was reached. The wines were hand plunged over a prolonged skin contact time of 20 to 30 days. The wines were pressed directly to French oak barrels (50% new) for malolactic fermentation and aged on light lees for 13 months prior to blending and bottling in August 2007.
Results:
93/100 5 star “..this discreetly powerful wine exhibits medium-deep red/purple colour, complex aromas of blackberries and dark plums with subtle mushroom notes. It’s succulent and rounded on the palate showing satin texture and fine-grained tannins. A graceful Pinot with immense appeal already.” -Wine Orbit 2008
4 & 1/2 star “The judges voted this Pinot Noir THE best in the tasting. It has good berry aromas and a hint of forest floor. The palate displays some complexity with great fruit concentration combined with excellent oak integration. Its finish is smooth and long - very elegant.” -TIZWine.com Pinot Noir Tasting February 2008
Best of the Best Wine Guide 2009 Peter Saunders Food and Beverage Magazine
One of the 12 best wines tasted in 2008 TIZWine.com Bravo Publication
“Silky in the mouth with mineral, plum, cherry, forest floor and savoury oak. Exciting, characterful, perfectly balanced very-full bodied Pinot Noir. Special wine”. WineNZ Magazine Winter 2008
