Pinot Noir (Southern Valley)

WI N EMAK E R ’ S N O T E S
The 2016 Nautilus Pinot Noir is dark ruby in colour. The nose reveals lifted
floral aromas, ripe wild blackberries, cherries and spices. The palate is medium
bodied with good structure. Refined and balanced, this elegant wine shows
good intensity and a lengthy finish.
V I N TAGE
Prior to Christmas all the talk was about drought. Fruit set was good but would
we have enough water to get through the season and what effect would this
have on bunch size. Certainly the river was low. But of course Mother
Nature intervened and a couple of timely rains in January during the critical
phase when the berries size up meant that a crop that was looking average at
best ended up above average in size. A key feature this year was lower acidity
(by normal Marlborough standards), bright fruit flavours and a nice mineral
texture across all the wines.
WI N EMAK I N G
To make this wine, fruit from Pinot Noir clones 114, 115, 5, 667, 777 and Abel
was hand harvested and de-stemmed without crushing to allow a portion of
whole berries in the ferment. A small amount of whole bunch fruit was also
included in some ferments (average 18% whole bunch).
The grapes were fermented with indigenous yeast in open top fermenters after
a 6-8 day ‘cold soak’. Careful cap management, using our pneumatic punch
down device, has resulted in extraction of only the soft ripe tannins. After
pressing the wine was racked directly to a mixture of new and older French oak
Barriques, where it remained undisturbed until filtration and bottling in March
2017.