The 2022 growing season started out with substantial winter and spring rains due to La Nina but dried out around Christmas and into the new year. A warm January and February led to a very consistent and well-paced ripening period, The Pinot Noir crop was made up of average yields, but small bunches of good concentration and intensity and was of very good quality over a two-week period between 15th March – 30th March.
Handpicked parcels of fruit from our different blocks were wild fermented separately with approximately 20% whole bunch overall including a portion of carbonic maceration. After pressing the wine was racked to a combination of hogsheads and puncheons of which 20% was new oak. The wine was left undisturbed for 10 months prior to blending and bottling.
As reflective of the cooler growing season in 2022, this is a lighter and brighter expression of Bannockburn Pinot Noir. Displaying pure red fruits, aromatic spices, subtle use of whole bunch and oak seasoning, and a moderate tannin finish.
95+ points. I really like where the Bannockburn wines are at right now. I guess that you’d call this light but its length and general insistence is right up there. Indeed over the course of 24 hours this just built and expanded in the most impressive of ways. It’s a minerally pinot noir, smoky and spicy, with red cherried flavour run through with herbs and twigs and undergrowth. In its infancy, now, it somehow manages to be quite remarkably complex; it will only add from here. Certainly it’s light but this is an outstanding pinot noir. Campbell Mattinson, winefront.com.au.
