The Craft Series The Journey Pinot Noir 2017

Slopes & Ben Morven Vineyards, Southern Valleys, Marlborough The fruit sources for this wine are a blend between Abel and Dijon clones from our Slopes Vineyards and a field blend of 4 clones from our Ben Morven Vineyard.

Carefully hand-picked fruit was destemmed, without crushing, into small open-top fermentation tanks. 20% of the fruit was hand-loaded into the fermenter as whole clusters. The use of whole clusters, with the associated retention of the bunch stem at fermentation, is a very old technique used to add a lifted, spicy perfume while enhancing the tannic structure of the resulting wine. The grapes were cold-soaked for around 5 to 7 days, before the onset of a rapid, warm fermentation. The ferments were hand-plunged up to 4 times each day to keep the skins in intimate contact with the fermenting juice, then left to macerate for an additional 5 days post fermentation ensuring optimum flavour development and tannin integration. The young wines were drained and pressed before being aged in new and older French oak puncheons for 11 months, with malolactic fermentation occurring as the weather warmed.

Aged in French oak puncheons for 11 months.