Luna Estate Pinot Noir 2020

Rich and quite flavoursome pinot noir with red-fleshed plum, spice, dark cherry and a hint of floral characters. A backbone of peppery tannins makes this a good food wine with moderate cellaring potential. Good value at this price. Bob Campbell

From the start of the 2019/2020 growing season things looked promising! Great, even budburst with only a few relatively minor frost events. We went into this critical part of the season in the best shape yet in terms of our organic regime, with full under vine cultivation completed along with extensive spring inter-row cropping to ensure the vines had the best possible start. Conditions through spring were relatively normal; plenty of wind, some rain but not too much! With a classic Martinborough North West/South West flow. Flowering was very successful and a good sized crop was on the cards! The ripening season was long and dry but not overly hot. If one had to make any complaint at all it may have been that it was perhaps a little too dry! As we practice dry farming there was definitely signs of water stress in the canopy across some of the blocks. Welcome rain arrived just after the start of harvest but in the main conditions for picking were excellent and we had the rare pleasure of picking exactly when we wanted too! I feel strongly that2020 will go down in the books as a great vintage for Martinborough.

As always, crafted using 100% Estate grown Pinot Noir harvested from both of our vineyards. Majority harvested from the younger vines growing on the clay/limestone hillside of the Blue Rock Vineyard. All fruit is de-stemmed and gently transferred into 6 ton open top temperature controlled stainless steel fermenters. The fruit is chilled down and held for a 5-6 day ‘cold soak’ to aid in colour and flavour extraction. Once the cooling isturned off the ferment begins as the fruit slowly comes up to ambient temperature. Once fermentation is in progress the ‘ferment’ is plunged twice daily. Temperature is closely monitored with a peak of around 30 degrees C allowed towards the end of the fermentation. Total maceration time was between 15–30 days before gentle pressing followed by oak maturation for 10 months. Bottled following minimal fining and gentle filtration. Contains no animal products.

Oak maturation for 10 months.