Two Paddocks Pinot Noir 2021  £34.21

Two Paddocks Central Otago Pinot Noir

The flagship from Two Paddocks – an organically grown barrel selection from the estate properties.  In 2019 this wine was produced from the four Neill family Central Otago vineyards. These small sites are high-density planted in a range of clonal material cropped to under 5 Tonne per hectare with most vineyard practices carried out by hand.  As in the vineyard, the wine is handcrafted using traditional methods including a 46% whole bunch, indigenous fermentation and hand plunging.  Maturation is in French barriques for 10 months, using a mix of older and new (18%) barrels. 

Vintage Comment:

A dry cold 2019 winter continued into a dry spring that was dominated some severe wind and snow events. The critical flowering month of December was still relatively cool and experienced 50mm of rain over three days. As a result, flowering was both late and drawn out. Finally, the summer heat arrived in mid-January and lasted until mid-March but the critical cell division stage for the berries was also cool and along with the challenging conditions at flowering, resulted in crop levels being 30- 40% down in many of the vineyard blocks. There were two pieces of very good news though – the smaller bunches and small berries were much easier for the vine to fully ripen in late summer and ultimately resulted in densely coloured, aromatic wines. 2020 harvest was one of the most compact that Two Paddocks has seen starting, on the 6th of April and all done by the 24th April.

Winemakers Notes:

Hand-harvested, 54% de-stemmed and given a 7 day pre-fermentation cold maceration to extract colour and aroma. After an indigenous fermentation, with a single plunging per day, the wine was given another 5 days post-fermentation time on skins. Wine is then transferred to 1-4 (18% new oak) year old French medium toast barriques for a 10-month maturation, before racking and bottling. Estate Vineyard composition: 31% The Fusilier - Bannockburn, 20% - The Last Chance – Earnscleugh (Alexandra), 15% The Red Bank – Earnscleugh (Alexandra) and 34% The First Paddock – Gibbston.

“Redcurrant with wild herbs and blackberry follow into a lovely gorgeous mineral flow giving exuberance, freshness and poise, showing complexity and evolving tannins which will age well.”

Ageability: Drink now and up to 7 years. This wine will drink well in its youth and has the potential to age.