Blank Canvas Escaroth Marlborough Pinot Noir 2020

Blank Canvas Escaroth Marlborough Pinot Noir 2020"Already very expressive, the 2020 vintage (5*) was hand harvested from 19 year old vines at Taylor Pass, in the Southern Valleys, and matured for a year in French oak barriques. Bright ruby, it is a refined, complex wine, very savoury and supple, with deep, ripe cherry, plum and spice flavours, finely integrated oak, and a silky textured, very harmonious finish. Best drinking 2025+" Michael Cooper, The Listener, Mar 2023 "Theres a unique quality

"Already very expressive, the 2020 vintage (5*) was hand-harvested from 19 year-old vines at Taylor Pass, in the Southern Valleys, and matured for a year in French oak barriques. Bright ruby, it is a refined, complex wine, very savoury and supple, with deep, ripe cherry, plum and spice flavours, finely integrated oak, and a silky-textured, very harmonious finish. Best drinking 2025+" Michael Cooper, The Listener, Mar 2023

"There’s a unique quality about the bouquet of this wine with a soft floral scents and heirloom red berry fruit fragrances with a fine lightly toasted wood quality and most importantly - a sense of place and time. Youthful and complex. Textures from tannins, wood and acidity touch the palate first with a savoury quality before the flavours of red berries, plums, flowers and red currant. Taut and textured with a youthful energy and drive. Best drinking from mid to late 2024 through 2030+. Keen to try this wine again then" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Dec 2022

"Elegant, textural pinot noir with cherry/berry, violet, brambles/grape stems and mixed spice flavours. Supple, high energy wine with latent complexity that needs a little bottle age to reveal" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Dec 2022

Escaroth is a site that truly reflects vintage variation: this year's release simply ticks all the boxes for Pinot Noir Fanatics. It has beguiling, complex perfume that treads both red and blue fruit and an enchanting spice, game and earthy savouriness. The very low-yielding year (3.2t/ha) coupled with the dry-farmed nature of the site has resulted in incredible concentration and intensity. 2019 was a year the demanded the use of whole-bunch to ensure balanced extraction and lifted aromatics. The result is a very complex, savoury Pinot Noir with a structured yet elegant framework.

Escaroth Vineyard is a unique north-facing, sloped, dry-farmed site in the middle of the Taylor Pass. Vines were planted in 2001, and particularly rare of Marlborough, it is dry-farmed. The Taylor Pass has the biggest diurnal range in all of Marlborough and is often the driest sub-region. The north-facing slope is essential for frost protection as well as exposure for ripening while the low-vigour old soils are perfect for Pinot Noir. The total Pinot Noir area is junst under one hectare and is planted to Dijon clones 777 and 115. The vineyard is spur-pruned and VSP trained.

2020 - the vintage to go down in the history books as one of the easiest and exciting from a fruit perspective, but one of the most challenging and stressfull because of the Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown. A warm spring and above average rainfall set the growing season up well with an excellent flowering. Drought conditions through summer but moderate temperatures meant vines did not become too stressed and fruit was in excellent, clean condition. Overall 2020 provided Pinot Noir with great purity of flavour, balance and precision.

We hand-harvested the Escartoh Vineyard Pinot Noir on the 27th March 2020. 50% of the handpicked fruit wsa tipped into the open-tank fermenter as while clusters, with the balance destemmed and crushed over the top. The fruit was kept cool until natural fermentation commenced after fives days. The tank was hand-plunged throughout its 15 day fermentation period after which we drained and pressed the wine to barrel where it completed natural malolactic fermentation. The oak regime was 100% French oak barriques, asll low-toast level (35%new) for 12 months, with a further 3 months in tank to gently and naturally settle. We bottled the wine without filtration on the 8th June 2021 and it was released on the 1st November 2022.