Rapaura Springs Reserve Marlborough Pinot Noir 2021

This velvet-soft wine is full of delicious red berry, cherry and plum fruit aromas and flavours, with silky tannins.

The 2021 vintage was one of the earliest and shortest on record. The growing season was the third in a series of drought vintages and the stress on the vines was compounded by a huge wind run. The combination of some early frost events and a poor flowering resulted in lower yields and smaller bunches than usual. This, combined with the dry conditions, has meant that disease levels are incredibly low this year, resulting in better flavours and pristine fruit with good concentration, good tannin and good colour. We’re thrilled with the concentration and intensity of flavour in our 2021 wines, this vintage will be one to remember.

The fruit for our 2021 Reserve Marlborough Pinot Noir is from a selection of premium Pinot Noir vineyard sites throughout Marlborough. Extended hot and dryvweather before the 2021 harvest allowed us to pick our Pinot Noir when perfectly ripe. After harvest, the fruit was cold soaked for around five days to extract flavour, tannins, and colour. Fermentation followed, in a selection of small open top tanks, using a selection of yeasts. Each ferment was plunged three times a day. The wine was left to macerate for three to five days before a gentle pressing off the skins. The wine was aged in French oak for 10 months, including 20% new oak.