Esk Valley Estate Pinot Noir 2021

This is a robust and concentrated style of Marlborough Pinot Noir from an excellent Pinot Noir vintage. It was grown on the clay soils of the Wairau Valley's southern hills and exhibits aromatics and flavours of dark brambly fruits including cherry and plum with notes of herbs and spice. With its subtle oak influence, this is a fruit forward style and a fine match with food.

Sourced from sites on clay soils in the Wairau Valley, the area is often referred to as the Southern Clays displaying robust, dark brambly fruit.

The start of the season was slightly below the long-term average in temperature, but the weather settled and we saw a mild and beautiful summer. A splash of rain and humid conditions closer to harvest put some pressure on the viticulture team, but fortunately the weather stayed stable and sunny throughout the picking season. Pinot Noir is bright and fruity, with ample red and berry fruits on the nose, and a soft and juicy tannin profile with translucent red hues.

The vines are trained on an upright vertical shoot positioned trellis and managed intensively to produce low yields of excellent quality fruit. Shoot thinning, bunch thinning and leaf plucking are all undertaken in the pursuit of quality.

The fruit was destemmed and soaked before fermentation with wild yeast in open-topped fermenters. Hand plunging employed to gently extract tannin and colour. When dry the wine was pressed to both tank and barrel for malolactic fermentation. The wine was then aged in French oak barriques of which were 9% new for 11 months before blending and bottling.