NEW ZEALAND WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED
A haunting perfume of old rose and violets, damson plums and cherries with a decent handful of oaky briar spice for good measure.
Hot on the heels of the stonking 2019 vintage, the 2020 is a more refined drop – a subtle, nuanced palate of red plums, raspberries and cherries, a hint of cinnamon and some earthy spicy oak. Juicy acidity gives the wine a classy structure and length, supported by fine, polished, savoury tannins.
VINTAGE NOTES
The season started cool and unsettled, but temperatures quickly warmed up leading to an early, quick flowering. The last substantial rainfall of summer was on 17th December and after that Marlborough dried out. This wasn’t obvious early in January as ash drifting across from the Australian bushfires resulted in a lot of cooler cloudy weather to keep the vineyards green.
However, the season warmed up heading into February, and the grapes went through veraison in very good, clean condition. In the last week or so the nights cooled off, allowing extra time for flavour development heading into harvest. On Monday 23rd March, as we were handpicking our first Sauvignon Blanc, we heard that New Zealand was heading into lockdown for a month.
Thankfully, harvest was able to continue and the weather played its part superbly. Apart from the stress caused by virus, the actual harvest was a breeze with some of the best condition fruit we have ever seen. The Pinot Noir bunches contained lots of big juicy berries indicating the colour of the wine will not be as intense as that of the 2019 wines. The last grapes were harvested on 6th April and brought the surreal vintage to a close for the Jules Taylor Wines team.
VINIFICATION
The grapes for this Pinot Noir were grown in Marlborough’s Southern Valleys. The fruit was predominantly hand harvested over a two week period from mid March as optimum ripeness was reached in each block. At the winery, most of the fruit was de-stemmed into small open top fermenters and cold soaked for 5 to 10 days, with a small percentage of whole bunches included to accentuate the spicy perfumed aromas.
The juice was then fermented with indigenous yeasts, and plunged by hand to extract a good amount of colour and tannins. It was pressed immediately upon reaching dryness and a portion was transferred to French oak barrels for maturation. After a full malolactic fermentation in spring, the wine was bottled in February of 2021.
