Current Vintages: 2018
Pinot noir grapes are grown worldwide, mostly in the cooler regions, but the grape is chiefly associated with the Burgundy region of France. It is widely considered to produce some of the finest red wines in the world, but it is a difficult variety to cultivate and to make high quality wines.
Actually the German wine region “Baden” where we live is pretty close to Burgundy. Since we have founded our winery in 1985 we focus our winemaking on Pinot Noir. We also grow Pinot Noir at our winery Johner Estate in New Zealand. In the last years we have planted more and more young vines of Burgundy clones. The grapes are more compact and small-berried and enthusiast with its intense cherry flavours and smooth tannins, which remember of chocolate.
Only an intense vineyard management guarantees to gain fruits for a great wine. The main quality aspects in the vineyards are deleafing the fruit zone, reducing and dividing the grapes (green harvest), the harvest by hand and sorting the fruits strictly. The taste of the fruits, more precisly the balance of aromas, sweetness, acidity, tannis and colour are the main aspects about the harvest time.
Pinot Noir is thin-skinned so it must be handled carefully. Fruit is gently destemmed, and fermented in open and closed top fermenters. The cap of the skins is pushed down several times a day to extract colour and round tannin texture from the skins and seeds. The whole fermentation process with resting on the skins takes four weeks. Afterwards the wine ages in new oak barrels for twelve months. We filter the wine before bottling to avoid a depot in the bottle.