Black Estate Home Pinot Noir has a deep ruby hue. Smells like dark plum, violets, black olive, woody herbs, cinnamon, and earth.

The palate is dense, typical of Pinot Noirs from the Home vineyard clays, with emerging silky fruit flavours and a persistent mineral finish.

Unfiltered wine with small amounts of sediment. Decanting will allow maximum expression of aroma and purity of fruit.

The Vintage

Winter and early spring rainfalls and moderate temperatures meant vines grew evenly though out our vineyards from around the spring equinox in late September. Frost incidence was moderate keeping us watchful in October and November with the majority of the Black Estate vineyards avoiding frost damage.

Rapid vegetative growth kept our vineyard team busy with shoot thinning, cultivation, and organic spray rounds with short intervals. Weather at flowering was favourable for Pinot Noir.

Warm dry conditions in January and February slowed vegetative growth and ripened fruit. Settled conditions in March allowed an early start to harvest where hand harvested fruit was ripe and clean with low disease pressure and optimal ripeness.

Winemaking:

Hand harvested fruit was 95% de-stemmed without crushing giving an average of 70% whole berry. Inoculated using vineyard derived yeast the wine fermented for 28 days in 2.0 to 2.5 ton open top fermenters.

The vats were plunged using hand and foot one to two times per day during the peak of ferment. Each vat was pressed individually using a basket press.

The wines were matured in 228L and 500L French Barrels for 12 months, 0% were new. The wine was then racked from barrel, blended and settled in tank for 2 months and then bottled without fining or filtration.

Vineyard:

This Black Estate Home Pinot Noir was grown on the Home Vineyard located 6 kilometres north east of the Waipara Junction, in the Omihi sub-district of Waipara Valley, North Canterbury.

This is a north facing sedimentary clay fan on a gentle hill side slope. The soils are mainly Awapuni clay with calcium carbonate deposits.

The un-grafted Pinot Noir vines are predominantly 10-5 clone and were planted in 1994 at a vine density of 1841 vines per hectare. The new planting completed in 2011 has 2.0ha planted at 6177 vine/ha with 115, 667, 828, 943, Abel, and UCD5 clones.

Organic and biodynamic farming practices have been used since 2010. Home Vineyard became fully certified organic with BioGro in March 2017.

Technical Details:

Harvest: 12.8 Ton
Yield: 0.9 - 1.5kg/vine
RS: 0.13 g/L
TA: 4.9 g/L
pH: 3.70
Alc: 13.0%
VA: 0.47g/L
Total SO2: 35ppm