2014 Kupe Pinot Noir

From the close-planted Te Muna Road vineyard planted in 1999. Hand harvested, fermented with ambient yeast. Total maceration time c 17 days with hand-plunging in open-top wooden fermenters. More whole-bunch in here. Aged in French oak for 18 months, 50% new. TA 5.4 g/l, pH 3.61. Unfined and unfiltered. Not very expressive at first but opens up and you do smell the whole-bunch component in an attractive herbal stemmy character alongside some red-fruit sweetness and ripeness. Wonderful purity and restraint still with the freshest of dark fruit on the palate, riper than on the other Escarpment Pinots in 2014 (Larry McKenna says it should perhaps have been picked a little earlier) and then immensely dry texture. Long and embryonic. Real class even with a little more ripeness. Needs time to become more multi-dimensional. May 2016, www.jancisrobinson.com, Drink: 2019-2026