2018 Ostler Waitaki Valley Pinot Noir

Winemaker's notes

2018 was a classic big berry year, meaning we could do a little whole bunch fermentation on some well set Able clone Pinot. The skins were a little delicate in these big berries so we deliberately went easy on the pigeage, extracting what we assessed was the right degree for the ripeness and concentration for each batch. We employed both open and closed fermentation which gave us a range of tools to use, a bit like making coffee with both and espresso machine & a French press. Same beans different result. In this case we matched the technique to each vineyard, open topped for the sloping blocks like Doctors Creek and for the smaller berried clones like 667 and closed top for the flat sites like Shines and bigger berries such as UCD5 and Able.