Viticulture

The 2002 Pinot Noir is only the second release of this single vineyard wine from the Staete Landt Vineyard in Marlborough’s Rapaura area. An early wet season led to a lot of early growth in the vineyard and consequent need for extra work to keep the vines canopy open. Good warm dry weather during flowering ensured good even fruit set. The cropping level of the vines were adjusted to about 2 tonnes/acre (33 hl/ha) during veraison ensuring that we obtained the best possible fruit with complexity and concentration. This crop adjustment also gives us the opportunity to cull any bunches that are not as well advanced and thus to obtain evenness in ripening across the blocks. The end of season was typical for it’s long dry and relatively warm days and cool nights thus allowing harvesting of fruit that was in excellent condition whilst very ripe.
The grapes were hand picked from three different Pinot Noir blocks comprising clone 777, clone 115 and clone 114.

Harvest Dates: 26th March - 11th April
Brix: 24.5 - 25.0

Winemaking

The handpicked grapes were de-stemmed only to tank where they under went a cold maceration phase for seven days prior to fermentation and a post ferment maceration of up to 20 days. Total time on skins varied with the fruit lot but the maximum was 30 days. The wine was pressed off and settled briefly before being racked straight to barrels to undergo malo lactic fermentation. The wine was aged in a mixture of 25% new French oak and 75% older French oak barrels.
They were then aged on lees until they were eventually racked in April 2002 when they were blended and returned to barrel.
The wine was aged in barrel for a total of 15 months. Finally the wine was again racked from barrels in June 2002 given some polishing filtration before bottling.

Wine Analysis

Alcohol: 13.5 %; Acidity: 6.4 g/l; pH: 3.43; Sugar: <2g/l

Tasting Note

A complex wine that has seen the benefit of long slow barrel maturation partly in new and the majority in used French oak barrels.
This has produced a subtle, tightly structured wine with amazingly aromatic fragrance of violets and loganberries with earthy complexity. This is a medium bodied concentrated wine with fine delicate tannins and a long finish.
This wine will repay cellaring for three to five years.