INTRODUCTION
Made with grapes from one place, Ara single estate wine aims to deliver more surprise, more excitement and more enjoyment. Fusing the time-honoured art of winemaking with fresh ideas, we amplify and refine the natural qualities of our remarkable Wairau Valley location. The result is a strikingly different Marlborough, New Zealand experience. Single Estate wines are a fusion of grapes sourced from all areas of Ara ’s single estate vineyard and considered its’ most complete expression, year on year delivering true consistency in terms of style, flavour and balance.
HARVEST & WINEMAKING
This Pinot Noir has been built from the typical low yielding vines at Ara, which provides a complex savoury structure with soft tannins. The 2016 grape harvest occurred from late April, and took full advantage of the long cool late vintage and Indian summer allowing an extended fruit hang time . The resulting harvest was the smallest on record with very small deeply coloured, intensely flavoured berries. Fruit was de - stemmed but not crushed and transferred by gravity to tank for 5 - 7 days cold soak at ~8 C followed by fermentation and skin contact of 10 - 15 days. Fermentation temperatures peaked between 28 - 32C. Malolactic fermentation was completed in barrel to further integrate the fruit and oak for 10 months, which consisted of 10% new and 90% older fine grained French barrels. The resulting wine amply demonstrates the effects of a great vintage and an outstanding single vineyard site.
TASTING NOTES
A darker expression of Marlborough Pinot Noir and with the added complexity and rich texture that you can expect from Ara wines. Dark plum, raspberry and rich boysenberry fruit flavours emerge from a soft and savoury wine, rounded out with elegant fine tannins. This wine will go wonderfully well with single source venison and will mature gracefully many years.
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