Blind River Pinot Noir 2020

This single vineyard wine has a lovely vibrant ruby hue. The nose is delicately perfumed with strawberry, dark cherry and a subtle, smoky oak character. The palate has vibrant flavours with noticeable depth and concentration but is beautifully balanced. An elegant wine with a fruity, fleshy mid-palate and long, chalky finish. This is a classic expression of this vineyard’s Pinot Noir.

Our Blind River vineyard in the Awatere valley has a 1.9ha block of Pinot Noir that runs with the contours of the land. It is a cool site that requires careful attention to produce evenly ripe fruit. This means cropping at a low level and maintaining an open canopy. This ongoing attention to detail makes all the difference when it comes to producing great wine.

Hand-picked and carefully destemmed into two small open top fermenters, the juice was held at 10C for cold maceration for five days to assist in developing the primary fruit characters. This was followed by fermentation with temperatures peaking at 30C and the vats were plunged up to twice a day. A week after fermentation, the wines were pressed to French oak barriques (25% new oak) and aged for 10 months.