Mt Difficulty
Pipeclay Terrace Pinot Noir 2009

Our Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs are made in limited quantities and are not produced every year. This vintage was distinctive showing classic Pipeclay Stella cherry and blackberry with a slight spice kick and lovely light violet florals. The wine displays a strong dark berry entry, which moves into a rich and sensuous mid-palate. The wine finishes strongly with a combination of fruit and finely grained structural tannin. 2009 was a vintage with excellent flavour definition – intense cool varietal flavours with excellent concentration and typically high acidity providing lovely focus on the finish.

Cellaring Potential

Mt Difficulty Pipeclay Terrace Pinot Noir will improve for 10-15 years given optimal cellaring conditions.

Vintage 2009

2009 was a vintage with excellent flavour definition – intense cool varietal flavours with excellent concentration and typically high acidity providing lovely focus on the finish.

A cooler vintage; the volume of the harvest was down 15% on average. Climatically there was a good start to the season, but December was slightly wetter than usual which reduced bunch numbers. A typically turbulent January was followed by a cooler, wet February which slowed down vine growth. Good canopy management was essential, with canopies left as open as possible to minimise the effects of the weather. Central Otago provided its usual long, fine, warm autumn but a week into vintage a cold spell brought on a cold response in the vines. This hurried the ripening process considerably, shortening and intensifying the season.

Vineyards

The grapes for the wines that carry the Mt Difficulty label are subject to two strict criteria: they are managed under the umbrella of the Mt Difficulty viticultural team and must be sourced from vineyards situated in a very specific area - the South side of the Kawarau River at Bannockburn. Mt Difficulty Single Vineyard wines are even more site specific, created to express the terroir from which they come, and thus Mt Difficulty Pipeclay Terrace Pinot Noir is the essence of the vineyard itself. Pipeclay Terrace is made up of coarse, drought-prone Bannockburn soils and Scotland Point soils (impervious heavy clay). Bannockburn soils have a very low water holding capacity while the opposite is true of the Scotland Point soils, so irrigation systems have been designed to handle the very different requirements of each soil type. This vineyard is planted exclusively in Pinot Noir, with a wide variety of clones - 5, 6, 13, 113, 115, 667 and 777.

Winemaking Considerations

The fruit for this wine was harvested from our Pipeclay Terrace vineyard on the 7th and 11th of April. The majority of ferments were fully destemmed, one of the ferments had 25% whole cluster. The ferments underwent a period of 8 – 10 days pre-fermentation maceration at about 12^oC. Fermentation took 6 -10 days with a maximum temperature of 34^oC; the wine sat on skins for a further 8 – 10 days till tasting in harmony. The wine was punched down once per day during pre-fermentation; four times per day during fermentation and once to twice per day during post maceration. The wine was settled overnight after pressing and racked to barrel where it stayed for 16 months. The wine underwent malolactic fermentation in the spring and was racked out of barrel the following winter. The wine was not filtered or fined before bottling in September.