Seresin Leah Marlborough Pinot Noir 2012 Reviews

James Suckling: 94/100. With a compelling, complex and fresh nose of blue fruits and ripe cherries, this has plenty of bracken and sous bois on the make. It's leafy too and the oak is gently played. The palate has impressive tannin articulation while the sturdy structure is the key, supporting ripe, dark fruit flavors in the plum to cherry spectrum. This holds long and is nicely done. Drink in 2016.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW für Robert Parkers Wine Advocate: 90+ Parker points. Pale ruby colored with a touch of purple, the 2012 Leah Pinot Noir offers a slightly reduced nose of tires and tar over a good core of black cherries, pepper and Mediterranean herbs...quite tight-knit and reticent in the mouth with earth and herbal layers fleshing out the chewy tannins, crisp acid and long finish.

Michael Cooper: 4.5 stars. Unlike the single-vineyard reds, this immediately appealing, lower-priced wine is estate-grown at three sites: the Home Vineyard, Raupo Creek and Tatou, and is less new oak-influenced. The 2012 vintage (4.5*) was hand-picked, fermented with indigenous yeasts, matured for 11 months in French oak barriques (15 per cent new), and bottled without filtering. Full-coloured, it is fragrant, mouthfilling and savoury, with deep, youthful plum, cherry, spice and dried herb flavours, showing excellent ripeness and complexity.

Tasting Notes from the Winery

Grapes & Soils: Pinot Noir 100%. Vines are over 20 years on average in 2015. Soils are mixed alluvial silt, gravel and clay

Vineyard Profile: The fruit comes mostly from our clay rich hillside Raupo Creek vineyard. A small amount also from the alluvial shingles of our Tatou vineyard and the Noa vineyard, which is made up of a variety of Waimakariri type soils of alluvial origin. The 2012 vintage was a cool one, giving a long and gentle ripening. As a result, the tannins in our Pinot Noirs are silky fine and the fruit quality fresh with a vibrant, attractive acidity.

Winemaker's Notes: The fruit was hand-sorted before being de-stemmed and cooled. After a pre-fermentation soaking period, the juice was allowed to warm and fermentation started with wild yeast. During fermentation the caps were hand-plunged daily. The wine was then left to sit on skins for two weeks for post ferment maceration; a total of four weeks was spent in contact with the skins. It was then drained and lightly pressed before being transferred to French barriques, of which approximately fifteen percent were new. The wine went through natural malolactic fermentation during eleven months spent maturing in barrel, before it was bottled unfiltered and unfined.

Technical Information

Alcohol: 13.0%

pH: 3.7

TA: 5.3g/l

ABOUT SERESIN ESTATE WINES

Estate grown grapes from organic and biodynamic vineyards are handpicked and transformed into artisan wines through gentle, traditional winemaking – wine of passion, grace and spirit. Acknowledging Seresin’s ongoing commitment to sound environmental practices as a winegrower, Seresin won the Marlborough District Council’s 2009 Marlborough Environment Award.

Winemaker Clive Dougall

Annual Production 60,000 9L cases

Farming Sustainable, Biodynamic, Organic