Since 1985, Cloudy Bay’s mission has been to secure the greatest vineyards and produce the highest quality wine. Made from the truly iconic Marlborough vineyards in New Zealand, you can now discover the fruity depths of their latest expression, Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir 2020.
Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir 2020 is fragrant, appealing and aromatic. There is an immediate sense of depth, as notes of rose petals, dark cherries and blackberries fill the nose. On the palate, a core of rounded bramble fruit, ripe boysenberry and wild strawberry is underpinned by silky tannins and fine acidity. A concentrated yet elegant wine, versatility is this Pinot Noir’s calling card. It matches with a wide variety of foods, including lighter game meats (duck, rabbit), lamb, roasted vegetables, berries, herbs and almost anything chargrilled.
Cloudy Bay’s Pinot Noir comes from the cool clay soils and rolling, north-facing slopes of Marlborough’s Southern Valleys region. Sites are carefully selected and each vineyard tended with care. The aged alluvial gravels and dense clay subsoils balance drainage and water availability to yield the region's best Pinot Noir grapes.
During the 2020 season, the vineyards experienced near-perfect weather conditions. It was a dry but not particularly hot year in Marlborough, which allowed the fruit to mature with little stress on the vines. The crew undertook canopy work to let the bunches soak up the sun, resulting in a full-flavoured, concentrated and complex fruit. The harvest, under the cloud of COVID-19, was a challenge, but thanks to the sunny days and cool nights there was plenty of time to pick the fruit at the perfect maturity. The Pinot Noir was hand-picked from March 17th to April 5th.
For the vinification process the Pinot Noir fruit was gravity fed into the open topped fermentation vessels, with 7% whole-bunch inclusion. The skins were gently plunged, with an average of 21 days’ skin contact, and then 100% of the wine underwent malolactic fermentation. After fermentation, the wines were matured in French oak for 11 months, of which 30% was new.
Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir 2020, RRP €49.60, is available nationwide from independent stockists including Higgins Clonskeagh Dublin, Jus De Vine Dublin, Wine Online Dublin, On The Grapevine Dublin, The Wine Centre Kilkenny and O’Briens Wines and Donnybrook Fair.
Slán go fóill.