12 Wines of Christmas...Wine #2 revealed

The 2nd wine of our 12 Wines of Christmas is our 2019 Simply Noir. If you need a Secret Santa gift, let’s help you with this. Spread the love of our wine with your friends and colleagues - what a great gift to receive. Use the gift bag that was included in your Advent pack - you’ll be the rockstar Secret Santa!

This wine is always a treat to assemble. Gamay and Pinot Noir have always made up the majority our our Simply Noir, but in recent years, we’ve found that there are a few other varieties that fit really well with the wine’s profile. We discovered with the 2017 vintage that Dolcetto was quite a natural match, with its natural youthful exuberance and rusticity. This year, though, we were able to play around with a small lot of Zweigelt. Using carbonic maceration really played up the savoury edge to this grape, and it was a welcome addition to the blend. A surprising favourite among our spring releases.

Each lot was hand-harvested, sorted, destemmed and lightly crushed into open-top 1-ton fermenters, with the exception of the Zweigelt, which was gently transferred as whole clusters to a closed stainless steel tank, under a blanket of CO2. The Gamay Noir, Pinot Noir, and Dolcetto were all cold-settled before being warmed and inoculated with selected yeasts. The Zweigelt was fermented by carbonic maceration. Once alcoholic fermentation was complete, all lots were drained and pressed into individual stainless steel tanks and neutral French oak barrels (15%), where malolactic fermentation was completed. The final blend was assembled, stabilized, lightly filtered and bottled in March 2020.

Varietals: 63% Gamay Noir, 28% Pinot Noir, 5% Dolcetto, 4% Zweigelt
Alcohol: 13.5% alc./vol.
Residual Sugar: 1.7 g/L
Total Acidity: 5.72 g/L
pH: 3.55
Harvest Dates: Oct 9, 13 & 14, 2019
Bottling Date: March 2020
Release Date: April 2020