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NEW ZEALAND Tinpot Hut Marlborough Pinot Noir 2008
Producer
Tinpot Hut wines are made primarily from fruit grown on winemaker Fiona Turner’s vineyard in Blind River.
Fiona, who has worked with Matt Thomson for a number of years, supplements her own grapes with fruit from other growers in Marlborough and Hawkes Bay. The tinpot hut that gave its name to Fiona’s wines is an old mustering hut in the remote hills between the Wairau and Awatere Valleys. The huts were used as a base for musterers as they rounded up the sheep that had been in the hills from spring to autumn. The name links Marlborough’s past as a sheep farming centre with its current state as one of the world’s most dynamic wine regions.
Vineyards
The fruit for this wine was sourced from two well tended, low yielding vineyards in the Blind River and Conders Bend regions in Marlborough. The La Niña weather pattern that dominated the summer of 2008, bringing drought to many of the farming regions of New Zealand, was a blessing to the nation‘s grape growers and winemakers. The prolonged warm dry summer meant that all grapes on the vine in almost all regions of New Zealand were able to ripen fully, yielding good volumes of well developed, intensely flavoured fruit.
Vinification
The fruit was picked at optimum ripeness and carefully transported to the winery for de-stemming and chilling. Each batch of fruit was kept separate in small open top stainless steel fermenters and cold soaked for four to five days to extract maximum flavour and enhance colour stability. The wine was fermented using a mixture of selected yeast strains and hand plunged up to six times daily. After fermentation several batches were put in a mixture of new and older French oak barrels. The remaining batches were aged in stainless steel tanks to preserve the delicate fruit characters. Each batch went through malolactic fermentation and was aged on lees before blending and bottling.
Tasting Notes
Lifted aromas of cherries and plums, with a hint of redcurrant. Attractive floral notes also shine through which are nicely integrated with savoury mushroom and toasty oak characters. Classic cherry flavours on the palate, supported by hints of plum and redcurrant. Structurally the tannins are soft and silky, while the well balanced acidity ensures good length of flavour.
| Vintage |
2008 |
| Grape varieties |
100% Pinot Noir |
| Region |
Marlborough |
| Winemaker |
|
| Closure |
Stelvin |
| Alcohol (ABV) |
12.5% |
