PINOT GRIS - THE PERFECT PARTY POUR
Jules Taylor explains why her ever popular Pinot Gris is perfect for a party.
FOOD MATCH
This Pinot Gris is great with Thai or Vietnamese flavours - try pairing it with pork belly spring rolls or a traditional Vietnamese Pho . Alternatively try it with freshly caught scallops fried in butter with a touch of garlic and chilli.
MMM! Get the recipeS!WINEMAKERS NOTES
Forget what you think you know about Pinot Gris and try this tasty little treat. Jules conjures up some winemaker witchcraft to coax every last ounce of personality out of this subtle little grape.
AROMA & FLAVOUR
This wine explodes on the nose with a fruit salad of peach, nectarine, melon and pear combining with honey, spice and floral notes for an intense and inviting array of aromas. The palate is elegant, dry and concentrated with ripe, tropical and stone fruit flavours and delicious textural creaminess from the wild fermentation. It is a charming mouthful, concluding in a long, smooth finish.
VINTAGE NOTES
A strong El Nino weather pattern dominated in 2024, causing strong westerly winds and warm, very dry conditions down NZ’s east coast. Vine growth began later than previous years and a couple of very cold nights in early October caused a touch of frost damage in the Southern Valleys. Flowering was relatively poor, and it quickly became clear that the harvest would be much smaller than 2022 or 2023. Warm weather began in mid-December and continued right through to March, causing one of the shortest the ripening periods on record. However clear, cold nights retained fruit acidity during ripening. Harvest was short and sharp. Pinot Gris was the first fruit to arrive at the winery from the early ripening Meadowbank site, with fruit from the cooler Lower Wairau sites following a few days later.
VINIFICATION
Around 53% of the fruit for this Pinot Gris came from the Meadowbank vineyard in the Taylor Pass sub-region, and another 27% from the Waihopai Valley, with the remainder coming from the Rapaura sub-region. The grapes were a mixture of the older 2/15 clone and newer 457 and 52B clones which have been producing beautiful little berries full of concentrated stonefruit and spice flavours. The parcel of 52B fruit was hand harvested, with the remainder picked by machine. In the winery the majority of the juice was pressed and settled in tank then racked for a slow, cool fermentation with selected yeast to preserve fruit characters and freshness. Jules retained higher levels of solids through the fermentation to enhance mouthfeel and texture. The hand harvested portion of grapes was whole bunch pressed to old barrels for a wild ferment with natural yeasts. This portion of wine also underwent a full malolactic fermentation with some lees stirring. The components were blended in August and bottled in late October.
