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Bouldevines 2009 Marlborough Pinot Noir

This week’s wine comes from Bouldevines on Marlborough’s Dog Point road. It is not hard to work out that the winery gets its name from the blend of vines and boulders on the property. The property was a sheep and cropping farm originally, but during the 1970’s the planting of grapes was seen as a new challenge by owners Philip and Janey Walsh. They were amongst the pioneers in the region but it is only recently that their wines have been appearing under their own label, as fruit from their vineyard was sought after by other wineries.

Their fruit is still sought after, but now they reserve the very best for their own distinctive wines.

The 2009 vintage was a particularly good one, with a long spell of fine weather. The fruit ripened slowly in the clean, dry and breezy weather. The Pinot hung later than usual, developing lovely tannins and intense flavours. The bunches were small and clean with good sun exposure. Light leaf plucking was carried out after veraison (the onset of ripening).

Fruit for this particular wine comes from four blocks in the Bouldevines vineyard. Surprisingly different pruning techniques were used on each block. The four types of pruning were spur pruning, double Guyot, two cane pruning and three cane pruning. Each was selected to maximise the quality of the fruit in different areas of the vineyard.

In April, the fruit was harvested and destemmed into small vats, with the juice and skins held at low temperatures for at least 72 hours before fermentation. It was then inoculated with yeast and allowed to ferment with temperatures encouraged to exceed 30 degrees Celsius to extract colour and tannins from the skins. The cap was also plunged four times each day.

Once fermentation was complete, the wine stayed on skins for a further four days before being gently pressed to tank. The wine was transferred to small oak barrels, of which only 20% were new. It was then left in oak for 10 months to undergo malolactic fermentation, before being minimally filtered and bottled.

I found the 2009 Bouldevines Marlborough Pinot Noir to exhibit wonderful aromas of spiced plum, black cherry, and spice, with some underlying earthy notes. On the palate I found this wine to have the flavours of Black Cherry and Plum with some underlying spice and earthy. It seems robust for such a young vintage and has lovely ripe tannins.

I would particularly recommend this wine with game or roast lamb.

Reviewed by Stephen Clark (18/10/2010)

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