Aster Pinot Noir 2015
Tasting Notes
The Aster has ripe red fruit on the nose – think plums and strawberries along with a light, alluring spice. The Spring Seed Pinot Noir is a middle weight wine with red fruit running through the palate and framed within lovely tannins.
Vintage
We had a very early start to vintage in 2015, with generally mild conditions throughout. We had only a handful of hot days, which allowed natural acids to develop nicely. This was a very short, sharp vintage, with most winemakers finishing their vintage well before Easter. Yields were down, somewhere between 10 and 30% depending on variety. Joch’s take on the whole thing? ‘Fast, early and pretty’.
Winemaking
Back in the 1980’s Pinot Noir was big in McLaren Vale (as was Riesling!). Joch’s parents grew it to supply wineries with their sparkling base. As time went on other regions began to plant Pinot and so began the decline of this variety in McLaren Vale. We have a couple of blocks left and we use it to make a beautifully fragrant and silky smooth style. The idea is not to over-extract tannin – we don’t want to make a big Vale dry red. To this end, we employ a method called ‘carbonic maceration’ which means that the grapes are left to ferment (without being put through the crusher) in a big plastic bag in an apple crate. They ferment from within and in almost anaerobic conditions. The rest of the grapes are crushed and go through a more standard red wine making procedure, with open fermentation and pump-overs to extract a bit of colour and tannin. This component spends about 6 months in older oak before blended to the cab mac component before bottling.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Picking Date: 6th Feb 2015
Alc/Vol: 14.0%
Bottling Date: 19th October 2015