Mt Difficulty

AWARDS

95pts, James Suckling Tasting Report 2021

Dark cherries, orange zest, herbs and sweet spices. Medium-to full-bodied with fresh acidity. Balanced, with a creamy texture. Flavorful and fruity. Succulent finish. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

ABOUT

“An exquisite array of ripe Pinot Noir fruit - Strawberry, Red Cherry, blueberry and dark plum all at once. A gentle rose petal fragrance hovers over the top. Fruit flavours echoing the nose sweeps across the front, before cinching down through the mid palate, tightened up with schisty, mineral notes. The tannins fan out from there, creating an hourglass shape with a flowing and pillowy finish. Our most “old-world” vineyard in full flight this year. “ Matt Dicey, 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 in two picks on the 29th and 30th of April; in excellent condition a full month later than 2018. There is a selection of Dijon clones 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. One of the fermentors was fully destemmed, whilst we retained 25% whole cluster in the other. This was done to accurately reflect the unique characteristics of the site. The wine underwent either a 5 or 10 day cold soak and was hand plunged once daily; this was followed by a 9-10 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 either 19 or 24 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.