Our Wines

Ruby red and mid coloured our Rore has a fragrant nose of violets, cherries and plums.  A touch of toasted spicy oak and layers of cherries, plums, damp earth and savoury gamey notes are found on a softly textured palate.  Tannins are silky and balanced framing a long finish, and whilst restrained in its youth our Rore's natural acidity will help it develop and drink well for at least 5-7 years and will reward careful cellaring.

The fruit for our 2008 Rore was handpicked and transported to the winery in the cool of the Marlborough Autumn morning.  De-stemmed and lightly crushed into small fermenters, the crushed fruit was allowed to cold-soak for up to 7 days before we alled it to warm and begin fermentation.  Traditional burgundian yeasts were used to inoculate the must and a quick, relatively high temperature ferment was encouraged.  Once fermentation was finished the skins were pressed and after settling overnight the wine was put straight to barrel, of which 30% were new.  Malolactic fermentation was delayed until the warmer weather of spring (November, New Zealand time) to occur naturally in barrel.  This wine is a blend of clones 667, Abel, 777 and 115 with ten barrels being selected in February for blending and bottling.

The fruit for the 2008 Rore is predominately off our Awatere vineyard; with one of the ten barrels being from our Waihopai valley vineyard.  Both vineyards cropped at under 4 tonnes per hectare in 2008 and provided very clean concentrated Pinot Noir grapes.  Our Pinot Noir is grown on a vertical shoot positioned (vsp) trellis with two canes.  Shoot thinning, leaf plucking and rigorous irrigation control are all utilised to control vigour and crop load.  With a number of different Burgundy clones being grown harvest is spread over two weeks of ripening.

Best drunk with wild game or roast pork.