Wine Article
2018 Felton Road Pinot Noir Calvert
Last edited on 10/17/2019 by LindsayM
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Tasting Note
A floral and delightfully perfumed nose immediately engages and enthrals. Sweet fruit opens the palate exposing layers of dark cherry, spice and complex earthy notes. The sense of immediacy and open appeal is quickly tempered by its structural and mineral tannins: a mouthfeel characteristic of Calvert’s deep and heavy silt soils. They contribute a stature and seriousness to the proposition: contemplative and sincere.
Vintage
A vintage characterised by exceptional heat, with warmer than normal overnight temperatures being of particular note from October through January. As has often been the case, this was a vintage of two halves. When our calendars moved from January to February, the turning of the page was both literal and figurative. Temperatures crashed back down to ordinary levels (in fact, the coolest in 14 years) and the drought was broken by the wettest February on record. This cool and wet month slowed the ripening considerably and fortunately allayed our concerns for the potential style and quality of the wines; due to the preceding warm months and advanced season. Harvesting began early on 28 February and proceeded in an orderly and measured pace over the next three weeks.
Vinification
The unique gravity flow winery enabled the grapes to be gently destemmed directly into open-top fermenters without pumping with approximately 25% as whole clusters. Long pre-fermentation soaks of 8- 10 days prior to fermentation with indigenous yeasts and punched down by hand up to two times per day with a total time on skins of 21-23 days. Pressed off and barrels filled immediately by gravity to the underground barrel cellars. The wine spent 16 months in barrel (30% new French) with two rackings and no fining or filtration, before bottling in late-August 2019.
A floral and delightfully perfumed nose immediately engages and enthrals. Sweet fruit opens the palate exposing layers of dark cherry, spice and complex earthy notes. The sense of immediacy and open appeal is quickly tempered by its structural and mineral tannins: a mouthfeel characteristic of Calvert’s deep and heavy silt soils. They contribute a stature and seriousness to the proposition: contemplative and sincere.
Vintage
A vintage characterised by exceptional heat, with warmer than normal overnight temperatures being of particular note from October through January. As has often been the case, this was a vintage of two halves. When our calendars moved from January to February, the turning of the page was both literal and figurative. Temperatures crashed back down to ordinary levels (in fact, the coolest in 14 years) and the drought was broken by the wettest February on record. This cool and wet month slowed the ripening considerably and fortunately allayed our concerns for the potential style and quality of the wines; due to the preceding warm months and advanced season. Harvesting began early on 28 February and proceeded in an orderly and measured pace over the next three weeks.
Vinification
The unique gravity flow winery enabled the grapes to be gently destemmed directly into open-top fermenters without pumping with approximately 25% as whole clusters. Long pre-fermentation soaks of 8- 10 days prior to fermentation with indigenous yeasts and punched down by hand up to two times per day with a total time on skins of 21-23 days. Pressed off and barrels filled immediately by gravity to the underground barrel cellars. The wine spent 16 months in barrel (30% new French) with two rackings and no fining or filtration, before bottling in late-August 2019.