Mt Difficulty

AWARDS

95pts, James Suckling Tasting Report 2024

This is really delicious, with a mineral and strawberry character and just a hint of bitter chocolate and smoke. It’s medium-bodied with racy tannins and a juicy finish. Some graphite at the end. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

ABOUT

“Long Gully Pinot Noir is crafted in very limited quantities and only released in outstanding vintages. With a ruby red hue, a deep and alluring nose. Blue fruited on the front palate, there is a seamless line from the front through the mid, linking to the expansive and fine grained tannin. Dark, concentrated and generous, Long Gully exemplifies Bannockburn Pinot Noir." Greg Lane, Winemaker

CELLARING POTENTIAL

We expect this wine to evolve with careful cellaring for another 10-15 years.

VINTAGE

A vintage of variability, contrasts and many different phases of weather through the growing season. A normal to warm start to the season was interrupted by a cold snap and snowfall mid-November. Weather over flowering was patchy, but overall flowering was successful. An oddity during summer this year was warmer nights and cooler days. this gives the appearance of a warmer season than it really was. There was a significant amount of early season rainfall, right through to the end of January. Cool and very dry conditions prevailed through February when verasion occurs - slowing that phase of ripening down. The heat and regular rainfall did reappear in March and then finally a very cool and lengthy final ripening phase through April.

VINEYARD

Mt Difficulty Single Vineyard wines are site specific, created to express the terroir from which they come, and thus Mt Difficulty Long Gully Pinot Noir is the essence of the vineyard itself. Long Gully has Lochar soils with thin and wavy clay pans which are deep enough to cause no impediment to roots or drainage. These are well-drained, high pH soils ideally suited to viticulture. They generally have a 30 cm depth of top soil over fine to moderately coarse gravels. This vineyard is perched atop the banks of the Kawarau River and is one of the oldest sites in Bannockburn from vines that are 24 years old, with a small proportion from 21 year old vines.

WINEMAKING CONSIDERATIONS 

We harvested the Pinot Noir over four picks from the 5th to the 9th of April. There is a selection of older Pommard clones as well as 10/5 planted on the vineyard and represented in this wine. Where we were able to, we co-fermented all these clonal lots to enhance early integration. All of the fruit was destemmed, this was done to accurately reflect the unique characteristics of the site. The wine underwent a 5-7 day cold soak and was hand plunged once daily; this was followed by a 6-8 day natural fermentation with temperature peaking at 30°C during which time the ferment was plunged once daily. In total, the wine stayed on skins for 19-21 days prior to pressing, overnight settling and then went to barrel for 15 months. The wine went through malolactic fermentation in the spring, was racked to tank the following autumn and bottled, unfiltered and unfined, in November.