Luna Estate Martinborough Rosé 2022

Luna Estate Martinborough Rosé 2022Dry style Watermelon Strawberry cheesecake Softly textured "Very floral and pretty bouquet with scents of fresh peach and red papaya, some cherry and red apple adding breadth. Crisp and dry with a core of ripe peach and papaya, some red fruit and citrus flavours. A whisper of spritz is just part of the wines texture, in fact it highlights fruit very well. Plush, fresh and lengthy, a well made wine with floral, ripe and fruity finish. Best drinking

• Dry style
• Watermelon
• Strawberry cheesecake
• Softly textured

"Very floral and pretty bouquet with scents of fresh peach and red papaya, some cherry and red apple adding breadth. Crisp and dry with a core of ripe peach and papaya, some red fruit and citrus flavours. A whisper of spritz is just part of the wine’s texture, in fact it highlights fruit very well. Plush, fresh and lengthy, a well made wine with floral, ripe and fruity finish. Best drinking from 2022 through end of summer 2024" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Dec 2022

Clear and bright copper wire colour with a pinky tinge. Pretty and playful perfume, strawberry cheesecake and rose essence notes first up with a cooler watermelon & grapefruit like vibes on a summers day feel making me feel pretty good about life. Juicy and fresh, a blast of fresh berry and orange citrus, like fresh new season not quite sweet enough yet can’t stop eating strawberries or like licking a just cut grapefruit…. Really energising and taste affirming somehow. Softly textured with a mineral lick on the finish. Salivating and satisfying. Very moreish indeed. Drink now and drink plenty.

This seasons Rose was crafted primarily using the Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir clone Mariafeld growing on our Blue Rock Vineyard. This season we also included some Pinot Noir clone 10/5 from our Eclipse Vineyard. All fruit was whole bunch pressed to avoid over extraction. All of the free run and light pressed juice was sent to a temperature controlled stainless steel tank for long, cool fermentation. The harder pressed, darker coloured juice was fermented in seasoned 500L oak puncheons. Following 6 months on lees the tank and barrel portions were blended and gently filtered prior to spring bottling.

Pulling off a viable crop is a tricky task even when the weather is playing along. Some seasons the gods are not smiling though and it these seasons which feel like they are sent to test us! The 21/22 spring was strongly influenced by a strong La Nina cycle which created frequent NE weather events across the East Coast of the North Island bringing high humidity and frequent rain events, conditions which are less than ideal for grape farming; Pinot Noir in particular. Our vineyard team did an amazing job in highly challenging conditions to get us to a great position in Mid – January where it looked like an excellent crop was on the cards, plus the crucial period of flowering in late November turned out to be near perfect for the task. It felt like the region as a whole had somehow pulled off a miracle! The good vibes were short lived unfortunately when a rainfall event of biblical proportions struck the region in the 2nd week of February, around a third of annual rainfall fell over two days! Pinot Noir vineyards on the terrace, particularly those with Dijon clones were worst affected with widespread berry collapse followed by shrivel. Botrytis was also a very real threat and swept through many blocks making picking near impossible. Producers like us with sites off the terrace and a higher portion of the later ripening Pinot clones; Abel, 10/5 for example, certainly fared better. White varieties, because they are later ripening , were largely unaffected and quality across the board quality was high, ditto for Syrah. Looking at the wines 6 -7 months on I am extremely happy with what I see. It is the most satisfying to produce great wines in difficult years.

Food Pairing: Pack a rug and a picnic, go find a shady spot in the garden or at the river.