Rochford Wines

Rochford Macedon Ranges Pinot Noir

Vintage
2000

Varieties
100% Pinot Noir

Tasting Notes
Mid plum and brilliant in clarity. Nicely restrained but already showing hints of what is to come. Dark cherry fruit is combined with savoury and mocha characters. There are hints of perfume/violets. Sweet dark berry fruit leads into a rich and rounded mid palate. There is a nice balance of fruit and oak, well supported by fine tannins. The finish is long with the wine's 14 % alcohol adding an extra dimension of sweetness. The structure suggests a wine that will build well in bottle.

Cellaring
4 to 6 years

Winemaking
The great thing about making wine in a cool region is that the fruit comes into the winery at a nice low temperature. This year we had fruit temperatures of about 12 degrees Celsius. After crushing and chilling the fruit was in tank at 6 degrees. This year we cold soaked for 7 days and then added a yeast culture to the tanks. The wine was fermented for a further 7 days. During the cold-soak period colour and flavour are extracted in a water and sugar solution, while the extraction of hard tannins is avoided. This year we again fermented in the new oak component. This gives good integration of the new oak and provides some complex characters. We achieve this by running a portion of the fermenting wine into oak the day before the tank is pressed out. The wine was pressed at dryness, settled for 2 to 3 days to remove large solids, then racked into oak for malo lactic fermentation. After malo lactic the wine was left to settle, racked and then returned to oak for a further 9 months maturation. Prior to bottling in August the wine received a light egg white fining.

Viticultural Notes
The 2000/2001 growing season was another warm year, but unlike the previous vintage it was very dry. This resulted in a very early vintage with all our Pinot Noir being picked before Easter. Fruit quality was very good with sugars in the mid to high thirteens promising to give wines of around 14 percent alcohol. It is normal at Rochford to get a small amount of hen and chicken with this year being around 15 percent. These small berries are very concentrated and add extra colour and tannin to the finished wine.

Technical Data
Alcohol 14.0%
pH 3.60
Titratable acidity 6.5 grams per litre
Residual sugar 0.2 grams per litre

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