Tasting Notes
Our Reserve Pinot Noir 2010 vintage is a superb wine from Central Otago. This wine has been handcrafted from the Thompson Vineyard Terrace Block grapes, which have been grown following organic principles. It displays a deep cherry red colour, with aromas of classic dark fruits and chocolate, a hint of licorice all underpinned by subtle spicy oak. The palate is rich and opulent, with a long savoury finish. A complex wine with beautiful texture and balance.
Food Matching
This is such delicious wine, one that you won’t want to share with everybody. But just don’t keep it for special occasions either. Try it with char-grilled Asian style duck with a plum and mild chili salsa and to finish a special meal, it marries with a selection of aged cheese – superb!
Viticulture and Winemaking
The 2010 vintage in New Zealand will go down as one of the very best in recent history. Flowering and fruit set took place in relatively cool conditions, restricting yields to a little below average in most varieties and this, coupled with a slightly cooler than normal summer, resulted in fruit of exceptional quality and depth of flavour. Perfect conditions during harvest allowed us to pick fruit in excellent condition, certainly some of the cleanest fruit seen in new Zealand for many a year.
Closely planted low yielding vines have been tended using organic principles. There has been meticulous attention to detail within the vineyard - shoot thinning, hand leaf plucking, shoulder and bunch thinning pre-veraison, to produce exceptional fruit quality.
The fruit was destemmed with no crushing resulting in a moderate percentage of whole berries at fermentation. A warm, indigenous fermentation (no added yeast) ensued after a period of cold-soaking with regular hand-plunging in open-topped stainless steel vats. Lightly pressed wine was then run to French oak barrels and left on light lees. Malolactic fermentation occurred naturally later on in spring and after 14 months in oak, the wine was prepared for bottling in May 2011.