White gold hue with fine mousse. Delicate mealy aromas, flint, white peach, strawberry, lanolin, and bees wax. Effervescent, mouth filling, and luminous with dense dry phenolic’s and an invigorating salty Home Vineyard finish. Drink today.
Vibrant and alive this wine requires care when opening. Stand upright and chill to 8 degrees centigrade. Open the crown cap with a decanter ready to capture any overflowing wine. No winemaking additives, un-fined, unfiltered
Vineyard
The 2023 Black Estate Home Pétillant-naturel was grown on our 12 hectare Home Vineyard located 6 kilometres north east of the Waipara Junction, in the Omihi sub-district of Waipara Valley, North Canterbury. This is a north facing sedimentary clay fan on a gentle hill side slope. The soils are mainly Awapuni clay with calcium carbonate deposits. The Chenin Blanc vineyard that sits in the belly of the slope above the original vineyard is 0.5 hectares. Chenin Blanc clones 880 grow on root stock and were planted at 6133 vines per hectare in 2011 by the Naish Family.
Season
Winter and early spring rainfalls meant vines started the growing season in spring with adequate soil moisture. Very cold night time temperatures in mid October caused significant frost damage lowering yields in some higher altitude vineyards in North Canterbury. Once vineyards rebounded rapid vegetative growth kept vineyard teams busy with shoot thinning, undervine cultivation, and organic spray rounds with short intervals. Weather at flowering was settled but cool with intermittent rain. Post flowering for the second year running we experienced higher humidity levels than normal which averaged 80% through the normally dry December, January, and February months. Thorough leaf removal around the fruit zone was undertaken through the blocks and spray intervals were tightened up to manage the potentially high.
disease pressure from powdery mildew. Harvest across our three vineyards was later than the previous 5 vintages pushing into mid April as we patiently waited for optimal ripeness across the individual blocks. High quality hand harvested fruit with good ripeness and bright acidity was gratefully obtained.
Harvest
Hand harvested on March 30 2023
1980kg of Home Chenin Blanc Yield =1.8 kg/vine Brix 19.0
TA 8.9g/ L MA 2.5.g/L pH 3.15
Fermentation
Slowly whole bunch pressed. Settled for 24 hours, racked and inocluated. Fermentation with yeast propagated from a Home Block vineyard starter, in a stainless steel tank, then completed in bottle.
Bottling
Fermenting wine was bottled on April 27 2023. Fermentation was completed in bottle and then aged on lees for 13 months. Riddling occurred in gyropalettes from March 2024. Disgorged on May 8 2024.
133 doz (12 x 750ml) cartons were produced.
R.S 7.5 g/L TA 7.0 g/L pH 3.35 Dry extract 22.3g/L
Alcohol 12.0% VA 0.34g/L Total Sulphur Dioxide <10mg/L (no SO2 added)
