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 Mt Difficulty Roaring Meg Pinot Noir 2016 come from Cromwell basin vineyards managed by our viticultural team. The harvest began on the 5th and finished up on the 23rd April, another very condensed harvest. The majority of the fruit was destemmed to enhance the natural fruit characters of the Cromwell Basin. A small proportion was retained as whole cluster, with the aim of building texture and structure. The grapes stayed in the fermentor on average for a total of 21-23 days, with temperatures peaking at 28 -300C. The wine was plunged once daily during pre-fermentation and twice daily during fermentation. When the wine tasted in harmony it was pressed off to French oak where it resided on lees for 10 months. It underwent malolactic fermentation during early spring, was racked out of barrel in mid-summer with filtration, but no fining, prior to bottling. Winery Notes
