2018 Two Paddocks Pinot Noir

About the wine

The flagship from Two Paddocks – an organically grown barrel selection from the estate properties.  In 2018 this wine was produced from the four Neill family Central Otago vineyards. These small sites are high-density planted in a range of clonal material cropped to under 5 Tonne per hectare with most vineyard practices carried out by hand.  As in the vineyard, the wine is hand crafted using traditional methods including a 25% whole bunch, indigenous fermentation and hand plunging.  Maturation is in French barriques for 10 months, using a mix of older and new (20%) barrels. Vegan friendly.

Tasting Notes

Vintage Comment:
Two Paddocks 2018 harvest will be remembered as the earliest picking date on record. A warm spring that quickly turned in to a hot summer with much warmer night time temperatures than are typically experienced in Alexandra. Ideal conditions over flowering, which was a month early, began on the 20^th November. Again, perfect growing conditions meant veraison also began a month early on the 20^th January. The extreme heat and dry finished abruptly on the 1^st February. Cooler temperatures over February / March thankfully slowed ripening down and intensified flavour development.  However, harvest still began nearly a month earlier than typical on the 14^th March and was over by the 11^th April. Both the grapes and stems were beautifully ripe, intensely flavoured and in perfect health.

Winemakers Notes:
Hand harvested, 75% de-stemmed and given a 7 day pre-fermentation cold maceration to extract colour and aroma.  After an indigenous fermentation, with a single plunging per day, the wine was given another 5 days post fermentation time on skins.  Wine is then transferred to 1-4 (20% new oak) year old French medium toast barriques for a 10-month maturation, before racking and bottling. 

Estate Vineyard composition: 27% The Fusilier - Bannockburn, 22% - The Last Chance – Earnscleugh (Alexandra), 29% The Red Bank – Earnscleugh (Alexandra) and 22% The First Paddock – Gibbston.

This wine shows black currant, ripe red plum fruit and spicy aromatics following through to a rich plush but elegantly textured mouthfeel with great density, persistence and poise.

pH 3.60                                         TA   5.9 g/l                      Alc  13.0 %

Proprietor: Sam Neill                     Viticulturist: Mike Wing       Winemaker: Dean Shaw

Bottled:  February 2019                     Cellar: 2019 – 2026

$55.00