Ata Rangi Pinot Noir 2022

The season started well with no real frost damage and good canopy growth. Warm weather in October and November resulted in a good solid flowering. With low bunch good flowering was opportune. January was dry and very warm. Veraison started well around the 24th of January but stalled with the rain and cool weather that hit early February and continued throughout the month. Earlier ripening clones such as clone 5 and the Dijon selections were more adversely affected than our stalwart Abel. Hand picking was slow and meticulous to ensure only the best fruit made it across the sorting table, the addition of the new Pellenc Destemmer meant that the fruit that made it to fermenter was in mint condition. Made from only our oldest pinot noir plantings on the Martinborough Terrace, this wine is the best of all our vineyards in 2022. The result is a complex, elegant wine, beautifully perfumed in the classic Ata Rangi style. An amazingly fragrant nose of clove, cardamom and cinnamon lift from the glass which then further opens to more red notes of rosehip and grilled strawberry. More savoury notes of cranberry, lamb jus and orange peel spread through the palate. Full and smooth, the palate is velvety, balanced and buoyed by a fresh acidity that gives concentration and length. This is a satisfying and welcoming wine, open and playful now but with our usual thread of tannin and acid that makes these wines remarkable with age.