Esk Valley Pinot Noir - Marlborough New Zealand

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This is a robust and concentrated style of Marlborough Pinot Noir from an excellent Pinot Noir vintage. It was grown on the clay soils of the Wairau Valley's southern hills and exhibits aromatics and flavours of dark brambly fruits including cherry and plum with notes of herbs and spice. With its subtle oak influence, this is a fruit- forward style and a fine match with food.

The fruit was destemmed and soaked before fermentation with wild yeast in open- topped fermenters. Hand plunging employed to gently extract tannin and colour. When dry the wine was pressed to both tank and barrel for malolactic fermentation. The wine was then aged in French oak barriques of which were 4% new.

This wine is sourced from two vineyard sites on clay soils of the Wairau Valley. The area often referred to as the Southern Clays produces dark brambly wine. The vines are trained on an upright vertical shoot positioned trellis and managed intensively to produce low yields of excellent quality fruit. Shoot thinning, bunch thinning and leaf plucking are all undertaken in the pursuit of quality.