PHI Pinot Noir 2010
PHILOSOPHY
The Lusatia Park ‘B’ Block Pinot Noir is one of the more aromatic Pinot Noir sites in the upper Yarra Valley. To preserve these aromatics, we are extremely careful in the way we extract colour and flavour from the skins. Lots of whole berry fermentation and minimum plunging and remontage helps us to achieve this.
VINIFICATION
Fruit is hand picked and destemmed to six tonne open fermenters. 15% whole bunches are included. Natural fermentation occurs and the cap receives the occasional plunge toward the end of fermentation. After 20 days on skins the wine is pressed, settled overnight and gravity filled to French casks (40% new) for 10 months. The wine is then racked by gravity and bottled in early February.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Clone MV6 pH 3.68
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Planted 1985 TA 6.1
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Vine density 3500 per ha RS 1.6
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VITICULTURE
Vines are cane pruned to 25 buds and shoot thinned in the early growth stages to 18-20 bunches per vine. Fruit is hand picked into small crates, then chilled to 10°C before being transported to the winery.
TASTING NOTE
Wild alluring aromatics with plumpness and delicacy. Elegant, minerally and fine.
95 Points
"Lusatia Park is one of the treasures of Australian viticulture, nurturing an exceptionally beautiful and aromatic Yarra Pinot. This is an engaging and appealing vintage, laden with rose petals, exotic spice and dried flowers."
Tyson Stelzer, Wine 100, April 2012
"PHI is a joint venture between the Shelmerdine family, who own the Yarra Valley’s outstanding Lusatia Park vineyard, and De Bortoli winemaker Steve Webber, a craftsman of the highest order. This wine has been racking up show triumphs, winning several golds and trophies — including one for best single vineyard dry red at the 2011 National Wine Show in Canberra. It’s a wine of linearity and formidable length, striking just the right balance between dark berry fruit characters and mushroom compost/black truffle notes. Like a welterweight boxer it’s light on its feet but packs a formidable punch."
Winsor Dobbin, The Examiner, February 2012
"The 2010 PHI Pinot Noir is an essay in depth, richness and focus. Its pristine fruit smells fresh and compelling. The oak is beautifully integrated, adding sweet and spicy complexity through dark cherry and plum flavours. Impressive composure is what defines the palate. It's quite rich, but with structure and restraint, fleshy dark-cherry fruit, smooth long tannins and a sturdy spine cloaked in silken fruit flesh. There's plenty to enjoy here but nothing unnecessary, it's very precise, and you might well conclude that it displays the poise of a good burgundy with the character of the Yarra Valley."
Nick Stock, Gourmet Traveller Wine, January 2012
5/5
"The Yarra Valley Phi project between De Bortoli and Shelmerdine families has yielded a cracking pinot that was judged top wine of the National Wine Show last month. All the pinot planets lined up here, woody spices and cherry aromatics, bright fresh, pretty raspberry and cherry fruits and delicate spicing."
Tony Love, Courier Mail, Herald Sun, The Mercury and Daily Telegraph, December 2011
95 Points
"Lusatia Park vineyard nurtures one of the Yarra Valley's most beautiful expressions of pinot noir, laden with refined rose petal, exotic spice and dried flower aromas. Consummately detailed, delightfully exotic and hauntingly seductive, this is an engaging and appealing vintage, enhanced with the exoticism of 20% whole bunch fermentation."
Tyson Stelzer, , December 2011
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