Polperro /
2024 Mill Hill Pinot Noir
REGION
Mornington Peninsula
TASTING
This is a complex and compact wine. Red fruits—cherry, berries, redcurrant, boysenberry meet with alpine aromas and a post rainfall petrichor-like minerality. A finely structured palate sees crunchy red fruit in line with the nose. Dried berries, fresh pomegranate and fine tannins. It’s seamless, light on its feet, dancing across the palate: poached rhubarb, blood orange and mineral acidity.
WINEMAKING
The fruit is handpicked and destemmed into 2 ton open fermenters as whole berries and left to start fermenting naturally. It is not touched until a 2-3° drop in baumé, which allows fermentation to occur inside the grape berry to increase the aromatics of the finished wine. Once fermentation starts strongly then the ferment is hand plunged 2-3 times per day for 15 days. The wine is left on skins for post ferment maturation for another 15 days. It is then pressed off skins and racked to barrel. 30 % new oak and predominately Sirugue extra tight grain light toast. In spring the wine is racked and returned to barrel. After a total of 16 months barrel maturation the wine is bottled without fining or filtration.
VINEYARD
Our Mill Hill vineyard is in Red Hill, the highest and one of the more exposed sites in the region, with a north-facing slope with vine rows running due north. This ensures a long ripening period giving high levels of natural acidity which persist through to the wine. There are two blocks on this vineyard: The ‘road block’ which goes into our estate wines and the very special ‘hill block’ which lies over a bedrock of granite and produces our single vineyard Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The wines are mineral and driving in nature.
Elevation: 270M
Harvest dates: early to mid-April
Clones:
Pinot Gris D1V7 clone, own roots 0.9 acres
Chardonnay I10V5 clone, own roots 4 acres
Pinot Noir MV6 clone, own roots 2.5 acres
115 clone on 101/14 rootstocks 0.8 acres planted 2009
Q120a clone on 101/14 rootstocks 0.1 acres, planted 2009
Q320a clone on 101/14 rootstocks 0.1 acres, planted 2009
The single vineyards produced from this vineyard are Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and all vines are cane pruned to Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP).
VITICULTURE
We grow, make and farm our vineyards using a philosophy of sustainability and regenerative agriculture, applying a mix of biological, biodynamic and organic practices.
REVIEW
PRICE
$110 RRP/ $660 case of 6