Onannon Pinot Noir, Gippsland

Description

Onannon Pinot Noir is made from grapes sourced from the wine-growing region of Gippsland in Australia. Gippsland is a large region which covers the southeastern part of Victoria along the Tasman coast. It is a region best known for Pinot Noir.

Onannon is wine company founded by three wine lovers and friends, Sam Middleton, Kaspar Hermann and Will Byron. The name Onannan arrives from the using the last two letters of their surnames. The venture began in 2008 when they produced around 80 cases per year. Today the company has grown a little, but still only makes 1000 cases per vintage. The focus mainly on Pinot Noir but they also produce single site Gippsland Chardonnay, Mornington Peninsula Pinot Gris and Yarra Valley Rosé. They share a “garagiste” wine-making philosophy and wine-making is very much hands-on at their purpose built winery located on the Mornington Peninsula. This is at their “home” vineyard, a five five acre vineyard in Red Hill overlooking Port Phillips Bay. This vineyard is planted primarily to the MV6 and 777 clone of Pinot Noir and Onnanon have been making wine from this vineyard since 2009. They took over management of the vineyard in 2014. They also buy grapes from select producers of outstanding fruit on the Mornington Peninsula.

The fruit for the Onannon Gippsland Pinot Noir  is sourced from two vineyards. 70% from the close planted Bellvale vineyard near Leongatha in South Gippsland planted in 1998. The vines here are clones 114 and 115 from these red volcanic soils. The remaining 30% is sourced from the Lightfoot vineyard established in 1998, this old site is planted to the MV6 clone in the East Gippsland Lakes District. The soils are Terra Rossa over limestone. The two parcels of fruit are vinified separately but using the same vinification methods and blended before bottling. The fruit is all hand harvested and fully de-stemmed leaving whole berries intact. The fruit begins its own fermentation with wild yeasts and is plunged twice daily. After fermentation the wine is racked to 30% new French oak where it undergoes natural malolactic fermentation on lees. The wine spends 10 months in barrel it is then racked twice before bottling.