Rippon ‘Emma’s Block’ Mature Vine Pinot Noir 2015

Emma’s Block faces eastward on the lakefront where ancient clay reefs run laterally through fine schist gravels. Emma’s Block is named after the great-great-great grandmother of the current generation of the Mills family, through whom the name entered into the family.

Picked by hand into small, 10kg cases allowing the fruit to arrive at the winery’s sorting table undamaged and intact. Picked and fermented separately in 3, 2- tonne stainless-steel fermenters. 27% whole cluster component. Each parcel is fermented and matured apart before blending. The winery’s resident yeast population (non-inoculated) started fermenting on day 4 to day 9 of cuvaison. The ferments reached maximum temperatures of 14 – 29°Celsius. Total time of skin contact: 20 – 27 days. 10 months of new (26%) to 4 year old French oak barrels. The malolactic fermentation went through unaided (non-inoculated) in springtime; it was then racked back into barrel and allowed a second winter in neutral barrels before being run directly into bottle without filtering or fining. Total time in barrel: 17 months. Bottling date: 12th November 2016pH: 3.68 , T.A.: 7.5g/l , Alc.: 13.8% ,R.S.: < 2 g/l

THE Winefront

Rippon ‘Emma’s Block’ Mature Vine Pinot Noir 2015 – 96 / 100 Points

Deep fragrance, so appealing, such a strong, siren song, cherries, sweet earth, truffle, old spice cupboard. The palate is awake, succulent, peaky on just-ripe cherry flavours, white pepper, lively herbal-stemmy character. Unadorned, pure, yet so much going on, tannins, crisp acidity, detail of fruit. Will last long, long in cellar too I suspect. Super expression.

– Mike Bennie/strong>