Luna Eclipse Pinot Noir 2019

Winter came late with August and September cold and wet. Jack Frost paid a visit with acatastrophic event occurring late spring resulting in heavy losses across the region. We werenot spared, Eclipse vineyard was struck across the blocks closest to the terrace edge, lossesestimated around 30%. High rainfall returned in November negatively impacting on theflowering stage, reducing crop levels significantly and making machinery work extremelydifficult. To put it mildly; a highly challenging spring. Summer was hot and relatively dry. Harvest was earlier than usual with perfect weather forpicking. In the end excellent quality fruit was harvested albeit in small quantities.

Hand harvested at Eclipse Vineyard on the 15th and 18th of March. This vintage of EclipsePinot Noir was sourced from the original 1992 Pinot Noir plantings in Blocks one and Four.Majority of bunches were de-stemmed directly into two and three ton open top fermenters. Every effort is made to preserve as much “whole berry” as possible. This, along with the useof cooling helps to ensure a slow onset of full fermentation allowing the native non–saccharomyces yeasts time to perform an initial ferment before the stronger, moredominant native saccharomyces yeast strains take over and complete full alcoholicfermentation. Plunging was limited to two times each day. A small portion of fruit wasfermented 100% whole bunch from this vintage, not something I will necessarily do everyvintage. Total maceration time for this vintage was between 20 – 30 days before gentlepressing. All press fractions are included in the final blend. Once the wine had settled in tank for three or four days it was transferred to French oakpuncheons for maturation. Malolactic fermentation completed naturally during the winter of2020. In total the wine spent 12 months in barrel. New oak in the finished wine is around20%. Whole bunch component is approximately 15%. The only additions were sulphurdioxide post malo followed by a small top up prior to bottling. Bottled Unfined andUnfiltered.

oak maturation for 12 months.