Prophet's Rock - 'Home Vineyard' Pinot Noir 2022

Prophet's Rock - 'Home Vineyard' Pinot Noir 2022

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Description

Concentrated and elegant with red and dark fruit, spectacular baking spices combined with smoky oak and the signature integrated tannin structure, this seamless wine with its velvety texture will leave you wanting more.

The foundation of this wine is our focus on delivering low-yielding concentrated fruit that expresses our vineyard. In the winery, we employ traditional old world techniques; the grapes are handled gently and the wines are fermented using only the indigenous yeast from the vineyard.

The wines are aged in barrel for 15-18 months before being bottled unfiltered, and are cellared before release. Since the first release in 2005, the Prophet’s Rock Pinot Noir has consistently been one of the best-reviewed Pinot Noirs in New Zealand.

Cellaring will reward collectors over the next 10+ years from vintage.

2022 vintage notes

We had a cool start to spring with a fairly bleak September, meaning budburst was only fully underway in early October. October was mild and warmed up in the last week with temperatures over 20DegC as vine growth started to accelerate. November, as has often been the case, was a transition month. There were cool temperatures and rain mid-month but by the end of the month we’d had our first day hit 30C.

Our first month of ‘summer’ wasn’t especially hot, December did not have a single day that reached 30C, it was stable but mild with 53mm of rain spread throughout the month. Good growing conditions for the vines with very even shoot growth through this period and a good flowering.

January was when summer arrived, the month was dry and very warm, classic Central Otago golden weather. The warm weather continued through February with some welcome rainfall early in the month.

We started picking in mid-March with Chardonnay and conditions were perfect for harvest, mild temperatures in the mod-20’s and no rainfall after a small shower on the 8th of March. April continued the golden weather, after the first week the temperatures hovered in a range of 15-22 degrees. We were all done on the 12th of April, finishing with the Vin de Paille harvest.

As far as vintages go, everything was rather straightforward, no weather events to disrupt plans, amazing fruit and flavours and easy ferments. Right from the start the wines showed a lovely depth of flavour and concentration, bright aromatics, and good structure in the Pinot Noir.

48 barrels were made.

17 months in French oak barrels

Bottled on 6th of October 2023.

13.5% alc.

--------THE PRODUCER--------

Prophet's Rock

Two vineyards were established in the Bendigo sub-region: The Prophet’s Rock Home Vineyard and, subsequently, the Rocky Point. Both are steep and elevated, and each is distinctive – The Home Vineyard with its rare mix of soils, including schist, clay and chalk, and Rocky Point with its stony ground and almost treacherous slopes. The winemaker is Paul Pujol, who has spent many years refining his trade working in France’s classical wine regions of the Languedoc, Sancerre and, crucially, Burgundy and Alsace.

 

--------THE GRAPE--------

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir produces some of the world's most expensive, most lauded, rarest and delicious wines. Equally it is one of the most difficult grapes to grow successfully and as a result it is quite hard to make a balanced Pinot Noir. It is historically from Burgundy, most specifically in the Cote de Nuits, so much so that people will refer to Pinot Noir as a 'Burgundy'. Here the wines are light with an array of bright red fruit and floral flavours. 

 

--------THE REGION--------

Central Otago

Central Otago is one of the most southerly wine regions in the world and it is most commonly referred to as Pinot Central, in New Zealand. It has a long history of winemaking dating back to the mid 1800s and in fact a 'Burgundy' from Central Otago won a gold medal in a Sydney wine competition in 1881. A few winemakers including Alan Brady helped to craft it into a leading Pinot Noir region for the world thanks to his fruit-bombs. Many fantastic aromatic white wines excel here also.