> Review this wine
This distinctive Hawke's Bay Pinot Noir exhibits a nose of attractive earthiness with hints of mushroom which complement the ripe fruit aromas.
The Pinot Noir fruit is tight, clean and balanced by an integrated seam of lightly toasted French oak. The palate is both soft and fleshy with attractive ripe cherry fruit, layered with spicy French oak. The tannins are ripe and fine-grained and offer gentle support in the mouth.
Region: McDonald Estate, Hawke's Bay
Varieties: 100% Pinot Noir
This distinctive Hawke's Bay Pinot Noir exhibits a nose of attractive earthiness with hints of mushroom which complement the ripe fruit aromas.
The Pinot Noir fruit is tight, clean and balanced by an integrated seam of lightly-toasted French oak. The palate is both soft and fleshy with attractive ripe cherry fruit, layered with spicy French oak. The tannins are ripe and fine-grained and offer gentle support in the mouth.Food matching suggestions
Mushroom risottos, peppered steak and Church Road's Duck Confit match the earthy mushroom flavours and ripe cherry fruit that are abundant in this wine.
You can't go wrong serving this wine with almost any meal that includes mushrooms. To really highlight the wine and food match add a dash of Church Road Cuve Series Pinot Noir to a mushroom sauce that accompanies a rare red meat dish or to a mushroom risotto. For something a little different add cherries to the sauce.
Recommended cellaring
This soft, gentle style of Pinot Noir has been crafted for drinking through to 2004.
Winemaking
Winemakers: Tony Prichard and Peter Hurlstone
Grapes were hand-harvested from our McDonald Estate vineyard in early March at about 23 Brix, with the small, clean berries showing very even colour and ripeness with excellent flavour concentration.
After hand-harvesting the fruit was completely destemmed and crushed to a fermenter where it was cold-soaked for four days prior to inoculating with yeast.
The wine then spent a total of 16 days on skins with regular pumping over to extract colour, flavour and tannin. Malolactic fermentation was completed in French oak barriques where it aged for twelve months.
This is a lighter style of Pinot Noir with soft, fleshy fruit and a gentle tannic structure.
Vintage
1998 was the vintage of the decade in Hawke's Bay.
Growing temperatures were 23% higher than the 30-year average and rainfall was 37% lower. Of particular note was the extremely low rainfall over the March/April harvest period, allowing winemakers to leave the grapes on the vine to achieve optimum maturity.
Analysis
Alcohol: 13.0 % vol.
pH: 3.55
Total Acidity: 5.9 g/l as tartaric
