Esk Valley Estate Pinot Noir 2019

The Marlborough region, with its high sunshine hours and cool nights, is ideally suited to producing poised Pinot. The result is a heady blend of plum and cherry fruits with intriguing underlying spice notes.

Gordon Russell presents his key wines

Sourced from sites on clay soils in the Wairau Valley, the area is often referred to as the Southern Clays displaying robust, dark brambly fruit.

The fruit was destemmed and soaked before fermentation with wild yeast in open-topped fermenters. Hand plunging employed to gently extract tannin and colour. When dry the wine was pressed to both tank and barrel for malolactic fermentation. The wine was then aged in French oak barriques of which were 9% new for 11 months before blending and bottling.