Fancrest Estate
Di's Pinot Noir
2010
We grew this wine in conversion to organics (BioGro #5124) on our Estate in Waipara. At 7 years old, these vines are still relatively young, but you can already taste the minerality derived from the free-draining, limestone-rich soils of the Estate.
2010 was a dream season... perfect cool climate growing conditions. Bud-burst was earlier than usual, flowering less prolific, and harvest later than usual. A long late summer provided us with an opportunity to get both skin and seed tannins really ripe with great cool climate Pinot Noir flavours.
We harvested 4 tonnes. We avoided the temptation to push young vines, and dropped bunches from slower vines on harder, thinner soils. In the older blocks we still did not take a full crop.
Hand harvesting began on 26 April, and ended on 28 April. The harvest was unusually compact, time-wise... a reflection of the way the vines caught up in the late Indian Summer conditions. The harvest was 100% destemmed without crushing into open top fermenters.
Fermentation began naturally, helped along only by gentle hand plunging. We basket pressed after about 23 to 39 days total maceration on the skins. Maturation took place in a selection of quality tight grained French oak barriques (mainly Allier and Tronçaise), about 30% new, for 11 months.
This wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered. Contains low levels of sulphites. Bottled under screw-cap in light-weight glass.
Di's Notes:
This once again is a wine that's going to need time to reveal its full potential. Vibrant juicy red fruit (redcurrant and cherry), and black (plum and black cherry) with finely balanced acidity and subtle oak. Mineral. Silky but powerful tannins. This wine is expected to take on a complex savoury character in the next couple of years with floral high tones as is typical for the Estate's wines. We do not stabilise tartrates so a heavy tannin-tartrate crystal sediment may soon develop in the bottle allowing the wine to soften naturally.
Bob Campbell MW 94/100