Central Otago Pinot Noir 2017: Vintage report and top picks

If Forrest Gump had preferred wine to running, he might have said ‘Central Otago seasons are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’.

From one year to the next, locals have come to expect the unexpected, from scorching temperatures in spring to snow in summer – and the 2017 vintage offered its own peculiarities.It was a cool start to the spring and summer, with poor flowering leading to small berries and millerandage (inconsistent bunch development).This resulted in lower bunch weights, so the final crop was around 10-15% smaller than normal – whatever normal is in Central Otago!

Pete Bartle of Vinpro, a contract winemaking facility for a number of well-known brands in Central Otago including Wooing Tree, Grasshopper Rock and Archangel, says: ‘2017 was one of those years where you worry about job security – I thought we would run out of season [and have no fruit]!

‘It had been so cold – normally you get some early heat in Central and we didn’t have any. We went into February and it was dragging. In warmer seasons we have the [bird] nets on in the first week of February, but on this occasion it was well into February.’

In Alexandra, the team at Grasshopper Rock thinned the crop in January due to concerns there wouldn’t be enough heat to ripen the fruit on the vine.

Managing director Phil Handford says: ‘It was one of the coldest vintages on record but in late February we started to get the heat we needed and we ended up picking at the same time as we had in 2016, because of the smaller crop load.’

As a result of the season’s small berries there was a high skin-to-juice ratio, imbuing the wines with deeper hues and higher tannin levels. Stems were not in favour in 2017 fermentation tanks, as there was a higher proportion of stems to the smaller than usual grapes.

Matt Dicey, winemaker at Mount Difficulty, says: ‘We used less whole-bunch in 2017 because we didn’t think there was as much ripeness in the phenolics.

‘Slightly lower pH and higher acidity is part and parcel of 2017, so the tannins could be assertive and we didn’t want to extract too much.’

The resulting wines are distinctive and characterful – fresh, fragrant and fruity, with common themes of raspberries, blackberries and violets. There’s a brightness to this vintage and a sense of tension not seen in warmer years.

It’s also encouraging to see ripe tannins despite the cooler season, and greater integration of oak. Dicey adds: ‘As the vines age we see more natural tannin coming from the seeds and skins – we don’t need to work hard to look for it.

‘The vein of fruit sits underneath it but there’s texture and complexity coming through. It’s a less-is-more philosophy and we are pushing new boundaries.’

Central Otago Pinot Noir 2017 top picks:

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