Tapanappa ‘DEFINITUS’ 2023 Pinot Noir

DEFINITUS

The centre of the Foggy Hill north-western slope planted in 2003 to Dijon Pinot Noir clones 115 and 777, ripens grapes to a greater fruit intensity and deeper colour than the rest of the vineyard.

The centre of slope DEFINITUS block is harvested separately and produces a special wine, still Foggy Hill but defined by its location on the hill. In the DEFINITUS block the underlying ferricrete sandstone is very close to the soil surface, restricting the size of the vines and their crop load. Hence the grapes ripen more uniformly and to a greater intensity. The 2023 DEFINITUS is the sixth release of this special wine.

The various other blocks of the rest of Foggy Hill complement one another to produce the unique and typical terroir expression that defines Foggy Hill Pinot Noir.

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The hand-harvested Pinot Noir fruit from the DEFINITUS section of Foggy Hill Vineyard was delivered to the Tapanappa Winery in the Piccadilly Valley.

Because of the cool vintage no whole fruit was included in the fermentation tubs. The tubs were filled with destemmed, crushed and chilled must, then were immediately inoculated with our own grown yeast strain and allowed to ferment to a maximum temperature of 33°C with daily hand plunging of the cap. At the end of fermentation, after 16 days, the DEFINITUS tubs were sealed to allow 5 days of maceration on skins then pressed to barriques (one third new) with an inoculation of a malolactic bacterial strain.

After malolactic fermentation on full lees, DEFINITUS was racked and returned to barrique for maturation. After 8 months in barrique the Foggy Hill DEFINITUS was clear racked, ready for bottling in December 2023.