Archery Summit Pinot Noir Red Hills 04
winery: Archery Summit
This wine opens with lifted aromas of spiced plum, black cherry, baking spices and vanilla. It is a serious wine with a shape that is linear and long. The palate boasts a complexity of flavors ranging from floral rosehip, sassafras and red currant to toasty oak, tobacco and bacon fat. This wine also has an element of earth on the finish reminiscent of iron and this minerality lends a vibrant and lively quality to the wine as a whole. This wine may be enjoyed now but will benefit from cellaring for the next five to eight years.
MORE INFORMATION
Wine Spectator 91 points (6/05): "Firm, with refined, cinnamon-scented berry and floral flavors that weave elegantly through the fine grained tannins on the finish. Best 2006-2012." H.S.
From the winery: "This wine opens with a perfume of black plum, cherry, forest floor and cinnamon stick. The palate is focused around a concentrated core of black cherry with notes of black currant, sassafras, cocoa, meat and mineral. A swarm of supple tannins lend depth and texture to this impressive wine. The finish persists with black fruit compote, toasty cocoa and exotic spice. The 2002 Red Hills Estate is of structured style and is both powerful and elegant, this wine is ready to be enjoyed now throughout the next five to ten years."2003 vintage will be released in December, 2005.
ORIGIN: The Red Hils Estate vineyard has moderate slopes, shallow Jory soils, and southern exposure. It produces one of our finest vineyard designated wines. The terroir of one of the premier sites in the Red Hills of Dundee is expressed uniquely in the aromas and flavors of the wine.
VINEYARD: This wine comes from 25-year-old plantings of self-rooted Pommard clone Pinot Noir and a small amount of our new plantings of Dijon clones 113, 115, and 777. The 2002 vintage had an amazing growing season; long and dry, without any rain until after harvest. Low yields and an extended ripening period helped to craft the concentrated, intense and structured 2002 Red Hills Estate Pinot Noir.
WINEMAKING: We use only native yeasts for fermentation, and the resulting wine is very impressive and represents the essence of our Red Hills Estate. The wine was vinified traditionally by utilizing 30% whole clusters and cold soaking for four to eight days before primary fermentation. Primary fermentation was conducted in tank entirely by indigenous yeasts, during which time tanks were manually punched down 1-4 times per day. The wine was aged for fourteen months in new Fran?ois Fr?res and Tonnellerie Rousseau oak barrels, prior to bottling in January 2004. Gently crafted in our 10)% gravity flow facility from the arrival of the fruit to bottling, this wine is unfined and unfiltered.
