Te Whare Ra Single Vineyard Rose 2022

We wanted to make a Rosé that reflected a classic, dry, savoury style and was based on Pinot Noir. Our favourite Rosés are lighter in colour and deliciously dry, with lifted florals and fresh fruit flavours, savoury undertones and ripe acid, so our aim was to replicate these qualities. In keeping with our house style here at Te Whare Ra we also wanted to make a wine that showed elegance and purity of fruit but one that also was fleshy and juicy with great texture and complexity.

Over the spring of 2020 we experienced cold and wet conditions over flowering which led to some of the lowest crops we have ever seen in 18yrs at TWR. Most of our crops were down at least 30% with some of the earlier flowering down up to 50% on what we would usually have. The summer of 2021 that followed was warm, dry and very nice and even with no big heat spikes. We did not get the issues with extreme drought like we had in 2019 and so with a couple of timely rains plus the more gentle summer conditions meant that we had the first fruit into the winery late Feb (officially earliest ever start to harvest here!) and then we were all done by the end of March

This Rosé is made from from our organic certified home block at TWR plus some fruit from another organic block – The Wrekin. It was picked over several picks in order to capture all the different spectrums of red & blue fruit characters we were wanting for Rose. All the fruit was hand-picked and hand sorted and then destemmed and left on skins for a quick cold maceration. After some time soaking on skins we drained off some of the juice to get maximum flavour but not extract too much colour and then put them through a gentle press cycle to extract more depth of flavour than just making Rose by Saignee methods. The juice was then settled to remove solids and all the parcels were fermented in stainless steel tanks. We prefer cool fermentation for Rosé to help retain all the great berry aromatics. All parcels were given time to rest on ferment lees for added texture and complexity. This wine has not been fined and is suitable for vegans and vegetarians and anyone else who loves authentic, hand-made wines