Tapanappa Foggy Hill Vineyard 2023 Pinot Noir

2023 Foggy Hill Pinot Noir is a low crop, very cool vintage expression of the Foggy Hill terroir.

The wine colour is light to medium intensity and has a delicate red to purple hue.

The aroma is very fresh and aromatic with rose floral and macerated strawberry, very pure Pinot varietal character. The Chinese five spice element of the aroma is pure and unique to the Foggy Hill terroir character.

The flavours are light and lilting with the sweet fruit core offset by a significant savoury tannin and mouthfeel and a lasting after taste.

2023 Tapanappa Foggy Hill Pinot Noir is the reflection of the perfectly ripe cool climate fruit from which it was made and is a “typical expression of the unique Foggy Hill terroir.”

Vintage Notes

2023 vintage was the fourth consecutive cool vintage and the coolest of the four after a sequence dominated by above average temperature vintages from 2006 to 2019.

At Foggy Hill, 2023 was very cool with a growing season heat summation (HDD) of 1261°C versus the average of 1336°C days. In 2023, there were no heat waves and the only two months of the seven-month growing season were slightly above average temperature.

October and November had well above average rainfall filling the soil nicely but interfering with flowering and causing a tiny crop of three tonnes/hectare that was harvested on the 18th of April, four weeks later than average and, notably, the latest ever harvest for Tapanappa.

In 2023, Foggy Hill delivered disease free, thoroughly ripe fruit in perfect condition, at very moderate sugar level.

Winemaking Notes

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

Because of the cool 2023 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 tubs were sealed to allow five days of maceration on skins then pressed block by block, clone by clone, to barriques (one third new) with an inoculation of a malolactic bacterial strain.

After malolactic fermentation on full lees, the batches were racked and returned to barrique for maturation. After eight months in barrique, the Foggy Hill batches were clear racked and blended ready for bottling in December 2023.

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