Winery & Vintage Info
In 2008 the Giesen brothers Theo, Alex and Marcel challenged the team to craft a collection of wines true to their vineyard, wines that speak of their place. Giesen Wines owns 13 Marlborough vineyards across 287 hectares each with different soil, aspect, water, sunshine and elevation. It is this diversity, supported by meticulous viticultural practice, which is the essence of the Single Vineyard wines. In the winery, Giesen’s winemakers let the wines speak for themselves practicing ‘hands off ’ winemaking where possible. The use of finest French oak allows the sense of place to shine. All this precision adds up to ensure the Giesen Single Vineyard Selection are wines of texture that articulate the terroir of their origin.
The Ridge Block was redeveloped in 2009, originally planted in Sauvignon Blanc, as a result of a French soil experts analysis, his interpretation was because the soil was very similar to that of Cotes Du Rhone and the foothills of the French Alps, focus should be on Pinot Noir & Syrah. The next stage was to move from conventional plant spacing to a high density format. The vineyard density moved from 20,000 vines to over 40,000 and is certified organic by BioGro NZ.
Sitting below Fairhall Southern side valleys - carved by ancient glaciers, deep silt gravels within dispersed underlying light clays, free draining, top solid rich in organic matter 20-40cm rich in silt, 40-100cm layers of gravels rich in iron, great porosity and good moisture content.
The 2013 vintage growing season started with constant warm dry climatic conditions giving even shoot development with good healthy canopies and a solid flowering and subsequent fruit set. The season continued to be warm and dry through January and February with temperatures ahead of the long term average resulting in nice even berry development and well-formed bunches ready to enter the veraison period. The vine canopies remained in good condition and carried the fruit through the veraison period up to harvest without stalling. We saw excellent flavour and anthocyanin development with fruit comfortably achieving full maturity before being hand harvested and delivered to the winery.
Block picked over 10 day period , hand harvested- picking based on physiological ripeness.Minimal cold soak, followed by up to 25 days on skins. The fermentations were long and cool as not to overly extract the tannin from the fruit.
