2023 Nikau Farm 'Nikau' Pinot Noir Rosé

In 2021 we made our first rosé (I use the term loosely) from the Nikau Pinot vineyard. I’ve long had a love for light pink wines and have made many under the Momento Mori label.

Having the chance to make this style from the same fruit each season has been educational and a lot of fun.

We dedicated the 11 short (30m) rows on the west side of the block to make this wine from each year. The goal being to show the nuance and character of the site, and to hopefully portray the varietal complexities of the fruit, not the easiest thing to do with rosé.

The west rows get the sunshine last and lose the sunlight first so the fruit always shows a slightly higher and fresher acidity from the other side of the same block. The soils are the same of course and comparing the Rosé and the Home Block Pinot Noir you can really see the site specific characters in both.

The fruit was picked early morning while still fresh and cool and was then immediately hand sorted and hand destemmed into an open tub. It then rested overnight in our cool room until the next morning when it was pulled out and pressed so the cool juice could begin a slow ferment.

Elevage was in a small 500L stainless steel tank for 10 months after which it was bottled by hand off of full solids. It has since had more than 2 years resting in bottle and is a very resolved wine.

It is a beautiful translucent pink in colour and has a wildly complex nose. It has so many similarities with the Pinot, it’s quite serious really with great structure and layer upon layer of complexity.

About Nikau Farm

Dane Johns has carved a formidable reputation making some of Australia's best natural wines. His hugely popular Momento Mori wines have a cult following and it's not hard to see why. The Nikau Farms wines are from Dane and Hannah's Gippsland vineyards.

They operate with the ideology of creating wines that first and foremost respect the living and are wines that they like to drink and share. They farm two sites one on the steep hills of Strezelecki Ranges in Gippsland and another beneath the Black Snake Ranges in the Tonimbuk valley.

Farmed strictly with organic principles and a appreciation of the living and dynamic environment around them. Nikau Farm wines are all very small batch with no use of new oak or mechanical pumps used on the wines, no fining or filtering and no additions apart from occasionally a tiny amount of S02 at bottling.

Snapshot

Region: Gippsland, VIC

Country: Australia

Alcohol: 12%

Vintage: 2023

Size: 750ml

Closure: Cork

Varietal: Pinot Noir

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