Wines
2022 RIKARD Pinot Noir
Our white labelled Pinot Noir is made to be red-fruited, elegant and fragrant. Pinot Noir fruit is usually sourced from our higher sites in the Orange wine region at a slightly earlier stage of physiological ripeness. Clonal selection is carefully considered also to encourage prettiness and fragrance over structure and power.
1796 in stock
Description
The 2022 season was one of the longest and coolest we’ve experienced in Orange and yields of Pinot were down considerably. Quality was fantastic – we only wish there was more! As a result, we were unable to source sufficient quantity of fruit to be able to produce two Pinots. Sadly, there’ll be no Black Label Pinot in 2022.
Our 2022 Pinot Noir is a beneficiary of the fruit shortage because every delicious bunch went into it alone. It receives all the usual love, care and attention as always and is a fantastic reflection of a wonderful vintage. It punches well above its weight and is a single-vineyard wine. Fruit was sourced entirely from the Kywarra vineyard at 860m ASL. There are two clones of Pinot Noir in this wine: 115 and MV6. This wine is made with minimal intervention and is one of the best we’ve made under this label.
Colour – Medium cherry red with purple hues.
Nose – Dark lapin cherries with clove-like spice. Some caramel and nougat richness, brightened by red fruits of pomegranate and raspberry – generally darker in spectrum than previous vintages. Toasty oak overlays it without dominating.
Palate – Deceptively intense. There’s a burst of cherry and forest berries in the mid-palate, then some soft malo creaminess to round the edges. Jasmine tea and fine grain tannins keep things together and a good lick of 2022 acid runs it straight down your throat! Delicious.
Winemaking notes:
- Harvested by hand over 2 separate picks in April 2022
- 115 and MV6 clones from one single vineyard, Kywarra at 850m above sea level
- Each pick wild yeast-fermented with a varying amounts of whole clusters in 1 tonne open fermenters and kept separate until blending
- 100% Whole bunch fermentation used for one component which makes up about 10% of the blend.
- Plunged by hand twice daily during fermentation then pressed gently once dry
- Settled and then racked to 225L French oak barriques for maturation (10 months), approximately 15% new oak
- Wine undergoes malolactic fermentation naturally in Spring, sulphured thereafter, November 23
- Blended February 2023, allowed to settle in tank on fine lees for a 2nd winter
- Bottled November unfined and unfiltered.
