Nautilus Southern Valleys Pinot Noir 2017

The 2017 Nautilus Pinot Noir is dark ruby in colour. The complex nose displays dark fruits, earthy notes and a touch of toasty spice. The palate is concentrated and elegant with a fine dense core of tanins and a long savoury finish.

Nautilus Southern Valleys Pinot Noir

Nautilus Estate has been at the vanguard of Pinot Noir winemaking in Marlborough for over twenty years, crafting its Pinot Noir in 1997. Early plantings of Dijon clones and experimenting with single clone and single-site trials led to a rapid appreciation of the potential for this variety in the region.

Nautilus Pinot Noir is a regional blend and we continue to like the “seasoning” of different flavours and layers of complexity contributed by our different vineyard parcels. However increasingly our Clay Hills vineyard is the cornerstone parcel for this “assemblage”. Planted in 2 phases, in 1999 and 2004, with a variety of clones, this vineyard has provided the largest component for Nautilus Pinot Noir since we bought it in 2007.

Spring and Summer were kind with good growing conditions leading to healthy vines. Harvest was neither early nor late, and Pinot Noir arrived at the winery in excellent condition well before the rains that proved challenging later in the vintage. The combination of site selection, clonal diversity and vine age is really coming together with this variety and this year’s small crops mean the wines have the potential to be truly exceptional.

This site is located on an elevated hillside on the eastern Omaka Valley and was purchased by Nautilus Estate in 2007 as a premium component for Nautilus Pinot Noir. Viticulturist Mike Collins says, "With our existing company vineyards on the Wairau Valley floor and in the Awatere already producing trophy-winning Pinot Noir, the one thing we lacked was a premium Southern Valleys hillside site. The Clay Hills Vineyard fits the bill perfectly and adds great mid-palate structure and texture to Nautilus Pinot Noir."

To make this wine, fruit from Pinot Noir clones 114, 115, 5, 667, 777 and Abel was hand harvested and de-stemmed without crushing to allow a portion of whole berries in the ferment. A small amount of whole bunch fruit was also included in some ferments (average 18% whole bunch). The grapes were fermented with indigenous yeast in open-top fermenters after a 6-8 day ‘cold soak’. Careful cap management, using our pneumatic punch down device, has resulted in extraction of only the soft ripe tannins. After pressing the wine was racked directly to a mixture of new and older French oak Barriques, where it remained undisturbed until filtration and bottling in March 2018.

11 months in French oak - a mixture of old and new oak.