Palliser Estate Noble Riesling, Martinborough

Description

Palliser Estate Noble Riesling is made from 100% estate sourced fruit. A superb dessert wine with a great combination of sweetness and acidity.

The first grapes were planted at Palliser Estate in 1984 with the first commercial wines released in 1989 and the first wine exports in 1991. Today, the estate comprises some 92 hectares (around 228 acres) of vineyards planted with mainly Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc along with some Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. The grapes are planted on the “Martinborough Terrace”, a small but very special area of land located at the southern end of the North Island. It is framed by the Ruamahanga and Huangarua Rivers which helped carve out the Terrace centuries ago. The land is a stony silt loam overlaying varying depths of ancient free draining river gravels.

Palliser Estate place a lot of importance (more than many) on good vineyard practices. They train their vines to achieve a low canopy density and well-exposed fruit. This combined with judicious leaf plucking produces the distinctive fruit flavours in the wine. When the grapes are judged to be at their optimum maturity they are harvested and processed to retain the inherent fruitiness of this varietal.

The grapes for the Palliser Estate Noble Riesling are from Palliser’s Cirrus vineyard. The fruit was 75% affected by noble rot, Botrytis Cinerea. Fermented to 10.5% ABV with 70g of residual sugar.