Eclipse Pinot Noir 2020

From the start of the 2019/2020 growing season things looked promising! Great, even budburst with only a few relatively minor frost events. We went into this critical part of the season in the best shape yet in terms of our organic regime, with full under vine cultivation completed along with extensive spring inter-row cropping to ensure the vines had the best possible start. Conditions through spring were relatively normal; plenty of wind, some rain but not too much! With a classic Martinborough North West/South West flow. Flowering was very successful and a good sized crop was on the cards! The ripening season was long and dry but not overly hot. If one had to make any complaint at all it may have been that it was perhaps a little too dry! As we practice dry farming there was definitely signs of water stress in the canopy across some of the blocks. Welcome rain arrived just after the start of harvest but in the main conditions for picking were excellent and we had the rare pleasure of picking exactly when we wanted too! I feel strongly that 2020 will go down in the books as a great vintage for Martinborough.

Harvested at Eclipse Vineyard between 15-30 March. This vintage of Eclipse Pinot Noir was majority sourced from the original 1992 Pinot Noir plantings in Blocks one and four, with a portion coming off the 2007 Clone Abel plantings on the terrace edge. Most bunches were destemmed directly into two and three ton open top fermenters. Every effort was made to preserve as much “whole berry” as possible. This, along with the use of cooling, helps to ensure a slow onset of full fermentation allowing the native non–saccharomyces yeasts time to perform an initial ferment before the stronger, more dominant native saccharomyces yeast strains take over and complete full alcoholic fermentation. Plunging was limited to two times each day. A small portion of fruit was fermented 100% whole bunch from this vintage, not something I will necessarily do every vintage.

Total maceration time for this vintage was between 20–30 days before gentle pressing. All press fractions are included in the final blend. Once the wine had settled in tank for three or four days it was transferred to French oak puncheons for maturation. Malolactic fermentation completed naturally during the winter of 2020. In total the wine spent 12 months in barrel and around 7 months settling in tank post blending. New oak in the finished wine is around 20%. Whole bunch component is approximately 15%. The only additions were sulphur dioxide post malo followed by a small top up prior to bottling. Bottled Unfined and Unfiltered.

Rolled hogget roast stuffed with sweetbreads and served with jus gras and crispy agria potatoes.

pH 3.72              

TA 5.5 g/L       

RS <1.0 g/L              

Alc 14 %

Bottled Nov 21