Mt. Difficulty Pinot Noir Long Gully 2013

Long Gully Pinot Noir is hand crafted in very limited quantities and only released in outstanding vintages. Crisp blackberry and Bing cherry interplay with baronial floral notes alongside an assemblage of sweet brown spices. These same lifted dark cherry and berry notes dominate the entry onto the palate; there’s a classic Long Gully dense mid-palate with flow and texture. The wine finishes strongly with a lovely tension present right through the fine-grained tannins and spicy dark berry fruit.

VINTAGE

The growing season in 2012 kicked off with a cool spring. Frosts in early November reduced production from Station Block, at the top of the Cromwell basin, but Bannockburn was untouched. Although the cool spring continued after that, temperatures warmed just before Christmas in time to make for a very successful flowering. January was cooler and wetter than average and then February onwards was very warm and dry. We experienced a protracted veraison (the point at which the grapes stop growing and start to ripen, characterised by colour change) leading to increased variability in ripeness. To counter this we introduced a late colour thin to ensure fruit arrived in optimal condition at harvest. Early autumn returned to more classic settled Central autumnal conditions, and harvest started on the 3rd of April, continuing through until the 3rd of May. It was a normal yielding year, with nice focused acidity and interesting flavour profiles reflecting, to some degree, the variability of the season.

WINEMAKING CONSIDERATIONS

The fruit for this wine was harvested from our Long Gully vineyard on the 8th and 15th of April. Two thirds of the grapes were destemmed with 25% whole clusters were retained, the balance was fully destemmed. The ferments typically underwent a period of 8 days pre-fermentation maceration at about 9⁰C. Fermentation took a period of 10-14 days with a maximum temperature of 30⁰C; the wine sat on skins for a further 7 to 8 days until it tasted in harmony. The wine was punched down a maximum of once daily right through its maceration on skins. The wine was settled overnight after pressing, and racked to barrel for 16 months. The wine underwent natural malolactic fermentation in the spring and was racked out of barrel in late August. The wine was not filtered or fined before bottling in December 2012.