Organic. Dog Point’s 18-year-old Settlement Vineyard is located in the Omaka Valley, to the south of Marlborough’s Wairau Plains. This organically certified site is managed by Dog Point’s gun viticulturist, Nigel Sowman. The fruit for this bottling hails from a 0.25-hectare sliver at the top of the vineyard’s east slope, a clay-rich parcel planted at a density of 4,600 vines per hectare (all 777 clone).
Cropped at close to one kilogram per vine, it’s already super impressive. Whole berries were placed in a sealed tank for five days at ambient temperature. Fermentation lasted a further seven days before the wine was transferred to seasoned French oak. So, just 12 days on skins all-up. Bottled unfined and unfiltered after 13 months in barrel and a further seven months in tank.
Picked first, Settlement is typically the most red-fruited and youthfully radiant of the Corofin Pinot Noir trio although this ’19 has plenty of intensity.