2022 Prophet's Rock Pinot Gris

Pinot Gris has always been a strong focus for Prophet’s Rock. We farm our aromatic whites to the same high standard in the vineyard as our top Pinot Noir and take time through all aspects of production to ensure that the wine we release is the best reflection of the site it can be. The grapes for this wine are hand-picked from our estate vineyards with the predominate source being the Rocky Point Vineyard. This site has warm free-draining, predominantly schist soils with some of the steepest planted blocks in Central Otago. Extensive canopy and crop management is carried out during the growing season to ensure the grapes attained full physiological ripeness with great concentration, aromatics, and flavour. Yields on all sites are kept very low and do not exceed 38hl/ha or 5t/ha. The handpicked fruit is 100% whole-bunch pressed over 5-6 hours and fermented using only indigenous ‘wild’ yeast in old barrels. Fermentation typically takes 3-4 months and the finished wine is then aged without racking on gross lees until bottling just before the following vintage. The wine is bottled under Diam cork. A key point to his whites is the importance of elevage on lees. This was an important lesson he learnt whilst in Alsace, where the ‘greats’ almost always leave the wines post ferment on lees for extended periods, where so often in the new world for Riesling and Gris the wines are moved to tank/bottle in just a few months post primary ferment. Paul’s white’s are bottled just before the following vintage.Hand Picked – whole bunch pressed – slow over 6 hours. Settled overnight in tank – then transferred to barrel – takes as much fine/fluffy lees as he can.Wild Ferment in seasoned barrel (100% old). Slow ferment, 3 to 4 months due to temperatures. Once the ferment finishes, Paul doesn’t take off any lees for the entire elevage. Bottled before the start of the next harvest – 11 months approx. No Malo. Between 5 to 8 grams residual sugar. No Malo. Filtered due to sugar.