Pinot Noir 2021
Tasting Notes
The colour is classic Pinot; bright and light red. This is the eleventh vintage of our Pinot Noir and we reckon we have just about nailed this wine, style-wise. We have made an even, light to middle-weight wine with good length and balance.
Vegan Friendly
Vintage
Good winter and early spring rains were followed by a generally dry and mild growing season. After the leaner vintages of 2019 and 2020 it was nice to see a return to long term average crop levels. We had a slow and steady ripening period without any excessive heat spikes which has resulted in super varietal fruit intensity and balanced natural acidity.
A Mary Poppins kind of vintage; practically perfect! Joch is always loathe to comment favourably about vintage quality, for fear of jinxing things – he can be superstitious like that, but by the end of harvest, the word ‘exceptional’ was heard to come out of his mouth.
Winemaking
Pinot Noir was planted on our Braden’s vineyard in 1987. The young Joch Bosworth was wheeled out to help plant during his holidays – wonderful memories of working with his dad, something to treasure! Halcyon days indeed.
We make a lighter style of Pinot Noir and as such, we put about 30% of the Pinot Noir through carbonic fermentation in plastic bags in old apple crates. This helps us soften out the tannins; we want to make a delicious light luncheon wine, not a blockbuster. The rest of the grapes are put through a fairly standard Bosworth red winemaking process of being fermented in small open vessels and then matured for a short while in older oak barrels.
We pick the Pinot quite lean. The wine spends about 6 months in older oak.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Vineyards: Braden's and Cox
Picking Date: 28th Jan, 2nd and 17th February 2021
Alc/Vol: 14.0%
Bottling Date: 8th July 2021