Felton Road - 'Cornish Point' Pinot Noir 2024

Tasting Note: Red cherry, plum and a hint of dried herbs open the nose in a delightfully fragrant manner. The aromatics deftly define the knife edge ripeness that’s critical for great Pinot Noir; dialled in with ease in the exceptional 2024 vintage. Cardamom, mace and cranberry make an appearance, followed by a finely poised mouthfeel. The silky tannins are luscious and sweet, providing backbone and length. A typically expressive Cornish Point.

Vintage: After a wet September, spring commenced with good soil moisture and bud burst occurred at the normal time of early October. Temperatures hovered around average with December being warm and dry, enabling a successful flowering and fruit set. The dry conditions prevailed throughout January and February limiting berry size and setting the scene for fruit with elevated phenolic material and complexity. Judicious use of irrigation was required to maintain sufficient vine health throughout this sustained dry period. Temperatures never spiked and hovered around average enabling a slow and steady path to maturity. A distinctive feature of March 2024 was the cool night temperatures preserving acidity, freshness and precision of fruit character. Pinot Noir was harvested from 19 March to 9 April.

Vinification: The unique gravity flow winery enabled the grapes to be gently destemmed directly into open-top fermenters without pumping, with 25% retained as whole clusters. Traditional fermentation with a moderately long maceration on skins has extracted good colour and tannin with considerable depth of flavour. This wine was aged for 13 months in 20% new French oak barrels from artisan Burgundian coopers. In accordance with our noninterventionalist approach to winemaking, this wine was fermented with indigenous yeast and malolactic, and was not fined or filtered.