Pegasus Bay Waipara Valley Pinot Noir 2021

Pegasus Bay Waipara Valley Pinot Noir 2021French oak Dark cherry Cinammon Supple body "Superbly complex and enticing with dark berry, hazelnut, tar, toasted spice and rich floral aromas, it's concentrated and fleshy in the mouth delivering excellent weight and flow. Silky smooth and multi layered with loads of delectable flavours" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Jun 2023 "Intense pinot noir with cassis, blackberry, black cherry, spicy oak, dark chocolate and ripe plum flavours. Bold wine with appealing

• French oak
• Dark cherry
• Cinammon
• Supple body

"Superbly complex and enticing with dark berry, hazelnut, tar, toasted spice and rich floral aromas, it's concentrated and fleshy in the mouth delivering excellent weight and flow. Silky-smooth and multi-layered with loads of delectable flavours" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Jun 2023

"Intense pinot noir with cassis, blackberry, black cherry, spicy oak, dark chocolate and ripe plum flavours. Bold wine with appealing purity and nicely layered flavours that linger long after the wine has been swallowed. Accessible now but should age well" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Jul 2023

"Distinctive bouquet of ripe black cherry and barrel spices, dark plum and wood smoke, there’s a gun flint and savoury mineral quality and a core of ripeness and pinosity. Youthful, powerful, enticing. Delicious on the palate with a flinty ripe fruited core, dark cherry and black currant, a light dried herb quality, baked nut and wood smoke. Textures from tannins deliver a chalky fine quality, acidity some crunch and back bone. A quality wine from start to finish with best drinking from late 2024 through 2034" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Jul 2023"

"This is one of North Canterbury's greatest Pinot Noirs, typically very rich in body and flavour. Many of the vines are over 25 years old and the wine is matured for 15 months in French oak barriques (about 40 per cent new). Still very youthful, the 2021 vintage is deep ruby, with a perfumed bouquet. Mouthfilling and supple, it has deep, ripe cherry, plum and spice flavours, showing excellent complexity and richness, and a long, savoury, finely textured finish. A very graceful red" Michael Cooper, Sep 2023

"Pegasus Bay winemakers consistently make powerful Pinot Noir from North Canterbury, expressing the region's dry long autumns in wines of structure, with impressive body and, while this is unmistakably Pinot Noir with its red fruit flavours, it has dense, bold spicy aromas that add tasty complexity and length to every sip. Drinks well now but will be better in six or seven years and then some"Joelle Thomson, Dec 2023

"Darker, more exotic and more plummy than the Escarpment duo, this is a silky, hedonistic Pinot, and it encapsulates all that is great about this terrific estate. It is more forward than one might expect at only two years of age, and yet the tannins will keep it upright for 5-8 years, I imagine" Matthew Jukes, Nov 2023

Its colour is a deep ruby upon release. Dark toned and seductive, the nose unfurls with an alluring bouquet of boysenberry, black cherry, and cacao, underpinned with a savoury underlay, reminiscent of wood spice, roast game, truffle, leather, and a tickle of cinnamon. The palate is decadently ripe and supple bodied, with fine grained tannins and generous fruit weight that combine to beautifully harmonise the wine. A backbone of zippy acidity creates the perfect union, adding structure and length on the long, succulent close.

The vineyard is located within the Waipara Valley of North Canterbury, on free draining, north facing terraces. It benefits from being in the lee of the Teviotdale Range, giving maximum protection from the Pacific’s easterly breezes and thus creating a unique mesoclimate. The vines are over 30 years old, with a large proportion planted on their own roots. They are located on the “Glasnevin Gravels” where greywacke stones, silt and loam have been washed down from the mountains over the millennia. The soil is of low fertility, resulting in naturally reduced vine vigour. This produces low yields of optimally ripened, high quality, flavourful grapes, which fully express the qualities of this unique terroir. The vineyard has warm days, but the nights are amongst the coolest in the Waipara Valley, drawing out the ripening period of the grapes, while still retaining good natural acidity.

Cold weather during bud burst resulted in lower crop levels, hence no further fruit thinning was carried out. The subsequent warm dry summer served up perfectly ripened small berries full of intense flavour and concentration. Favourable conditions continued into autumn, allowing the grapes to be picked at their optimum ripeness.

Traditional Burgundian winemaking methods were used to make this wine. We picked the various blocks at different stages, depending on their maturity, aiming for a range of red and dark fruit flavours. Approximately 40% the grapes were put at the bottom of the fermentation vats as whole bunches, with the balance being destemmed on top, retaining as many whole berries as possible. The vats were kept cool over the next few days to help extract the soft, silky tannins from the pinot noir skins. After approximately a week the must started to ferment naturally. During fermentation the skins of the grapes were gently plunged twice daily. When the fermentation finished, the grape remnants were left to steep in the wine for up to a week to help extract a different range of tannins that add structure and depth. The exact duration of this period was determined by daily tasting. Subsequently the wine was gently pressed off and put into oak barriques (40% new) from selected artisan Burgundian coopers. In the summer after harvest, when the weather warmed, the wine underwent a natural malo-lactic (secondary) fermentation. After maturing for 15mths in these barriques, the batches made from the many different plots and clones of pinot were carefully blended in varying portions to produce the most complex and balanced wine possible.