Nomads Garden Pinot Meunier 2021

Handmade - Hand Picked & Sorted - Hand Plunged - Partial Carbonic Maceration in Barrel - Basket Pressed - No Acid or Enzymes Added - Natural Wild Yeast Ferment - Barrel Aged on Lees – Unfined

Single Vineyard – Evans Vineyard, King Valley

Grower - Dan Ebert

Sourced from the Evans vineyard located in Myrrhee, a picturesque tributary valley of the main King River system. The vineyard was originally planted in the 1990's by visionary winemaker Peter Read who realized that the climate and soils were ideal for growing then un-heralded varieties from cool regions of the world. Today the Vineyard is owned by Peter and Suzanne Evans and managed by Dan. In 2019 the opportunity to take some homeless Pinot Meunier arose, a product of the “Prosecco Boom”, we jumped at the opportunity and the subsequent experimental wine was such a hit we have decided to add it to our permanent stable of wines.

This is our second release of Pinot Meunier under the Nomads Garden label and made much the same way as the initial release in 2019 although the volume has increased to around 6.5T. The fruit was handpicked and carefully sorted in the vineyard before arriving at the winery where it was chilled for 24 hours prior to processing. The fruit was divided into 3 separate ferments:

• Ferment 1 – 2 tonnes – 90% of the fruit was gently destemmed but not crushed so as to preserve as many whole berries as possible. The remaining 10% was sandwiched in the middle of the ferment as whole bunches. 48 hour cold soak. Gently hand plunged once daily. Ferment was allowed to rise to 28c where it was held, 18 days on skins.

• Ferment 2 – 3 tonnes – 100% of the fruit was gently destemmed but not crushed so as to preserve as many whole berries as possible. 72 hour cold soak. Ferment allowed to rise to 30c and held. Gently hand plunged once daily. 10 days on skins.

• Ferment 3 – 1 tonne – 100% whole bunch. Whole bunches were hand packed into 3 of our specially made puncheon fermentors and generous scoop of dry ice was added to each then they were sealed with one way gas valves and left for 12 days. When we opened them we were instantly hit with a wave of lifted aromatics. Each puncheon was hand plunged to break up the bunches and release the remaining sugar. 20 days on skins.

Basket pressed to 5-6 year old French Oak Barriques and Puncheons for 7 months maturation on full gross lees. All three components of this wine work harmoniously together to create a delicate, fine and very pretty Pinot Meunier. A variety we believe has great potential in North East Victoria to produce very affable table wines, especially as the climate continues to warm. Lightly filtered then hand bottled at our winery. Vegan Friendly

- Nomads Garden