Whitehaven Marlborough Pinot Gris 2022

Aroma / Bouquet: Delicate white peach, quince and ripe pear, with a hint of baking spice notes.

Palate: This Pinot Gris displays flavours of stonefruit and pear, with an underlying mineral quality. Time on lees has contributed to the wine’s rich texture, which is finely balanced out with a gentle thread of acidity that helps to create a long, dry finish.

2021 will be remembered as a season of two halves. The early part of the growing season was marked by two severe frost burn events which affected much of the region to varying degrees. This was followed by variable cool and wet weather through flowering, resulting in fewer berries setting per bunch, further reducing crops after the frost damage. Post-Christmas however, we could not have asked for a better season. The weather remained warm, but not hot, and we had a beautiful diurnal shift leading into harvest, retaining freshness and energy in the fruit and providing the perfect conditions for flavour development. With the light crops, harvest was underway earlier than usual, and it was only in the final days of the harvest that we encountered some wet weather events that the winery was easily able to work around.

The fruit used to make this wine is from our Pauls Road and Tussocks Vineyard sites. The vines were trained to 2-3 cane VSP. Throughout the growing season the vines were thoughtfully managed, with open canopies and prudent crop thinning helping to create fully ripe, and clean fruit come harvest time.

The fruit used to make this wine was hand harvested and whole bunch pressed. After pressing, the juice was settled for 12-24 hours and then racked, retaining some solids in the juice. This juice was then fermented using a selection of aromatic yeast strains. After fermentation the tanks were topped without the addition of sulphur, and the wine was left on lees for 5 months prior to blending. After blending, the wine was filtered, before being bottled on the 8th December 2021.