Winery & Vintage Info
With there founding vineyards established in 1992, Mt Difficulty owns some of the oldest vineyards and is one of the most respected wineries in the Central Otago region of New Zealand's rugged South Island.
Situated in Bannockburn, a unique and rare area of extremes, Mt Difficulty has harnessed the once brutal terrain to produce premium wines at the forefront of Central Otago's wine production.
Our winter was dry so we came into the season with low soil moisture, October was significantly warmer than average leading to early bud burst, November carried this warm dry start on and whilst we had a small amount of rainfall leading into December it too was largely drier than normal. This led to an early and successful flowering. January was unseasonably changeable, whilst we had some rain it was the wind and changeability that really influenced growing conditions, delaying the onset of veraison.
February cracked on with some super warm and mostly dry conditions outside of one large rainfall event late in the month. March was again unseasonably changeable and overcast with small rain events occurring through the month. Finally, the sun returned in April, along with more settled, warm weather. The variability and overcast days delayed the onset of picking. The vintage was very compact; with everything being harvested over a 24 day period.
The grapes for this wine come from our vineyards in Central Otago’s Cromwell basin. The fruit was harvested in top condition from the 4th to the 24th of April. The fruit was processed in a reductive manner, with the juice settled overnight and racked clean the following morning. The wine was fermented cool, to help maximise varietal character. The wine was stop fermented in an off-dry style to provide some palate weight and texture. The wine wasn’t fined before being filtered and bottled. Winery Notes
