Winery & Vintage Info
Commencing with meticulous site selection and vineyard design in 1991, Felton Road's story is one of refusal to compromise. A strict 100% estate policy with fully organic and biodynamic viticulture (BioGro and Demeter certified) ensures that our fruit arrives at the winery as pure as it can be, while our entire estate comes as close to true sustainability as is possible. A commitment to hands off winemaking: gravity flow, wild yeasts, wild malo, an avoidance of fining and filtration all help preserve the wine's expression of its terroir. The result is Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir which accurately express the authenticity and complexity of our unique vineyards.
Felton Road farms four properties totalling 34 ha in the Bannockburn sub-region of Central Otago. This wine is from MacMuir vineyard which is just 1 km east of the Elms vineyard and winery, and just 300m west of Calvert. The vineyard possesses a higher vine density, a range of clones and deep heavy silt soils. Meticulous summer management of a single vertical shoot positioned (VSP) canopy ensures even and early fruit maturity. Shoot thinning, shoot positioning, leaf plucking, bunch thinning and harvest are all carried out by hand to ensure optimum quality fruit. Cover crops are planted between rows to assist in vine balance and to improve soil health and general biodiversity.
Regular rainfall throughout spring and early summer was higher than normal, and along with warmer soil temperatures, resulted in solid early season growth. Flowering commenced early in warm and ideal conditions with a cool spell and rain at the end, which had a minor affect on fruit set, but mainly confined to Riesling. A warm and dry January continued to advance development with veraison starting early and proceeding rapidly. Early February rain replenished drying soils and a cooler month was welcomed to arrest the advanced development. A return to warm and dry weather from early March meant grapes ripened quickly during the final stages. Harvest commenced early on March 16 with Chardonnay from Elms and Pinot Noir following the next day from Cornish Point. The harvest of Pinot Noir from the four vineyards was completed by April 4.
The unique gravity flow winery enabled the grapes to be gently de-stemmed directly into open-top fermenters without pumping, retaining 25% as whole clusters. Traditional fermentation with a moderately long maceration on skins has extracted good colour and tannin with considerable depth of flavour. This wine was aged for 13 months in 25% new French oak barrels from artisan Burgundian coopers. In accordance with our non-interventionalist approach to winemaking, this wine was fermented with indigenous yeast and malolactic, and was not fined or filtered.
