Mt Difficulty Bannockburn Pinot Noir Rosé 2023

Mt Difficulty Bannockburn Pinot Noir Rosé 2023Dry style Cranberryy Peony florals Textural A savoury style Ros, made for enjoying with food. Notes of cranberry, crabapple, and peony florals introduce the wine. Cranberry and dried cherry, some clove spice and fennel notes on the palate. The finish is dry and textural, asking to be chilled and enjoyed with a cheese platter at the Mt Difficulty cellar door. Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir Ros will improve for 1 3 years given optimal cellaring conditions.

• Dry style
• Cranberryy
• Peony florals
• Textural

A savoury style Rosé, made for enjoying with food. Notes of cranberry, crabapple, and peony florals introduce the wine. Cranberry and dried cherry, some clove spice and fennel notes on the palate. The finish is dry and textural, asking to be chilled and enjoyed with a cheese platter at the Mt Difficulty cellar door. Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir Rosé will improve for 1-3 years given optimal cellaring conditions.

The grapes for the wines that carry the Mt Difficulty Bannockburn label are subject to two strict criteria: they are managed under the umbrella of the Mt Difficulty viticultural team and must be sourced from vineyards situated on the South side of the Kawarau River at Bannockburn. Each has specific terroir, largely influenced by climate, and offers a variety of soil types from open gravels to heavier clays. They are all low in fertility, and include light sands, clays, loams and gravels. Mt Difficulty Bannockburn Pinot Noir Rosé is blended from a range of Bannockburn vineyards.

The 2023 growing season in Central Otago was vastly different to the rest of the country. We came out of a mild, wet winter to a warm and unusually still spring which meant strong shoot growth and fruit set. Post flowering, the summer heat increased, and Cromwell experienced it’s hottest January on record. We started picking in the middle of March however, a blast of cold weather from the south during the first week of April put a welcome handbrake on ripening which meant the majority of our grapes developed more flavour and tannin ripeness. We finished harvesting in mid-May, making it a longer vintage with excellent quality.

Our aim is to craft a delectable, savoury, dry Rosé. The fruit was hand-picked, it was spilt into two parcels in the winery where half was crushed and left to soak on skins for three days, in the traditional style of this wine. After skin contact,it was pressed and fermented cool with wild yeast in tank. The other portion of fruit was crushed and pressed directly to old barrels for fermentation. Once ferment was complete, the wine was blended and prepared for bottling after 5 months on lees.