Monday, 24 August 2020

Greywacke Pinot Gris 2017, Marlborough, New Zealand

Honey, pear, peach, green apple, oily texture, warm finish.


Much of the fruit for this wine is from the Selection Ovaille and Mission
clones grown at Wrekin Terrace Vineyard in the Brancott Valley, a valley floor site on gravelly clay-loam soils typical of the Southern Valleys. A smaller parcel of the Entav 52 clone (known for its small bunch and berry size) was grown at Riverbrook Vineyard in Rapaura, in young alluvial soils containing high proportions of greywacke river stones. The vineyards are trained on a two-cane VSP (vertical shoot positioning) trellis and crop thinning is carried out to target a modest yield of 7.5 T/Ha.

The three clones were hand-picked separately at high ripeness levels and
whole-bunch pressed using very low maceration press cycles. The resulting juice was coldsettled, then racked to fermentation vessels. Most of the juice went through a natural indigenous yeast fermentation in old French oak barriques and the balance was fermented in stainless steel tanks using cultured yeast.
Towards the end of fermentation all the wine was transferred to stainless steel tanks where the fermentations were stopped, retaining 10 g/l residual sugar. The wine then spent a year on yeast lees (six months in old barrels and the remaining time in stainless steel tanks) prior to bottling in May 2018 with an alcohol of 14.4%, pH 3.30 and acidity of 5.7 g/l.

This wine was released in June 2019.

Mark: B


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