Nautilus Southern Valleys Pinot Noir 2019

The 2019 Nautilus Pinot Noir is dark ruby in colour. The complex nose displays dark fruits, earthy notes and a touch of toasty spice. The palate is concentrated and elegant with a fine dense core of tannins and a long savoury finish

Nautilus Estate’s Pinot Noir development programme has resulted in us trialing various clones over several years in all three sub-regions of Marlborough. After monitoring style and quality carefully, we are now resolved to focus on the Southern Valleys, home of our prestige Nautilus Clay Hills Vineyard. The Southern Valleys (and associated hillsides) - Pinot Noir from these wind-blown clay soils shows a darker fruit character, more mid-palate weight and fleshiness and a dense tannin structure, giving weight and gravitas.

The 2019 season started with no significant frost issues and reasonable spring rains to keep canopies healthy. Some cool weather during flowering affected the bunch size of some varieties – particularly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and as a result very little thinning was required. Pinot Noir this year is spectacular, with the grapes in excellent condition and the young wines show great colour, fruit concentration and structure. This vintage will certainly be a contender for ‘best yet’ for this variety.

To make this wine, fruit from Pinot Noir clones 114, 115, 5, 667 and 777 was hand harvested and de-stemmed without crushing to allow a portion of whole berries in the ferment. A small amount of whole bunch fruit was also included in some ferments (average 20% whole bunch). The grapes were fermented with indigenous yeast in open top fermenters after a 7-12 day ‘cold soak’. Careful cap management, using our pneumatic punch down device, has resulted in extraction of only the soft ripe tannins. After pressing the wine was racked directly to a mixture of new and older French oak Barriques (25% new), where it remained undisturbed until filtration and bottling in February 2020.

11 months in French Oak barriques. 25% new