2023 Pinot Grigio
Oyster Bay
Hawke's Bay Pinot Grigio
Delightfully fragrant summer florals, with subtle spice and refreshing citrus.
The philosophy of Oyster Bay is to produce fine, distinctively regional wines that are elegant and assertive with glorious fruit flavours. Oyster Bay Pinot Grigio captures the delicate aromatic flavours of the grape whilst retaining its natural vibrancy and purity.
Grown in our cooler vineyard sites, the fruit ripens slowly over the growing season, developing flavour intensity and hallmark aromatic characteristics. To capture the subtle flavours of Pinot Grigio, we use a selection of yeasts, and lees stir to enhance the wine’s softness and texture. To ensure purity of flavour, we use no oak or malolactic fermentation. A unique cool climate expression of this wonderfully aromatic varietal. Elegant, crisp and altogether refreshing.
New Zealand is blessed with two natural attributes that enable it to produce Super Premium wines unlike anywhere else: a maritime cool climate and alluvial soils.
New Zealand’s position in the Pacific Ocean provides a unique, temperate maritime climate. The benefit of a cool climate with long sunshine hours is an extended growing season with a long, slow period of ripening. This allows the well ripened grapes to develop strong, intense varietal characteristics whilst maintaining a balanced, crisp, natural acidity. Over thousands of years the continual process of mountain building and erosion by glaciers, floods and wind, has deposited alluvial soils on the riverbeds and terraces throughout much of New Zealand. These are the soils in which the vines of New Zealand’s renowned wine regions grow unique, quality grapes.
Hawke's Bay Growing Region
The Hawke’s Bay region located on the East Coast of the North Island is one of New Zealand’s warmest grape-growing climates. The summer growing season experiences plentiful sunshine, but due to its inland elevation also experiences cooler night-time temperatures that allows fruit to ripen slowly. The day/night temperature difference keeps acid levels high in the grapes throughout the crucial ripening period, ensuring the development of the crisp acidity, flavour intensity and aromatic characteristics of our Pinot Grigio wines.
Soil Type
Naturally free draining, deep, alluvial soils ranging from old stony riverbeds to fine sandy loam over gravels of low fertility.
Clonal / Rootstock Selection
A range of clones (predominantly 52, 457 and M2) selected for their characteristic small, loose bunches and berries which provide concentrated fruit flavours grafted on low vigour rootstocks (3309 and 101/14).
Winemaking Techniques
The fruit was destemmed and transferred to tank presses where the free-run juice was run off and separated before gentle pressing of the remaining fruit. The juice was then clarified, racked into stainless steel fermentation tanks, then inoculated with a range of yeasts selected to retain varietal aromatics and character, and enhance complexity and aromaticity. A slow, temperature-controlled fermentation at 14–16°C (57–61°F) was undertaken for approximately 21 days. Post fermentation, the wine was lees stirred and aged in tank to add softness and texture. The wine was racked and bottled young to ensure that the aromatic, crisp and elegant varietal characters were retained.
Sustainable Winegrowing
As a founding member of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand, we are conscious of our environment and we work hard to identify sensitive areas such as wetlands, streams and native vegetation to ensure that our vineyard practices do not affect the plants and animals that inhabit these areas. We minimise our water usage through our state-of-the-art soil moisture probe technology. We look after our soils by having interrow ground cover plantings, and by spreading our mulch underneath our vines, to provide a botanically diverse ground which encourages beneficial insects into our vineyards.
2023 Hawke’s Bay Growing Season:
Excellent fruit from another exceptional vintage, delivering some of the most intensive flavours of recent years.
| Vineyard Locations: | Crownthorpe Terraces |
| Vine age: | 3 - 23 years |
| Harvest Date: | 2 March - 20 March 2023 |
Maturity Analysis at Harvest (weighted average)
| Brix: | 18.9 |
| Titratable Acidity: | 10.1g/L |
| pH: | 3.34 |
Wine Analysis
| Alcohol: | 11.5% v/v |
| Residual Sugar: | 5g/L |
| Titratable Acidity: | 7g/L |
| pH: | 3.4 |