Rippon Pinot Noir ‘Tinker’s Field’ Mature Vine 2018

Fruit Handling: 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 10, 2-tonne stainless-steel fermenters. 36% whole cluster component.

Fermentation: Each parcel is fermented and matured apart before blending. The winery’s resident yeast population (non-inoculated) started fermenting on the 6^thday of cuvaison. The ferments reached maximum temperatures of 28-32 Celsius.

Total time of skin contact : 18-28 days

Barrel management: 10 months of new (28%) 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: 16 months

Bottling date: 28th September 2018

Wine analysis at bottling:
pH 3.64
T.A 6.3 g/l
Alc. 12.5%
R.S < 2 g/l

Release Date: 1st October, 2020

98 points, James Suckling, Oct 2018, Top 100 wines of 2018
94 points, Wine Advocate Robert Parker, August 2019

“From the oldest part of the Rippon estate vineyards. Significant vines for anywhere, really, when you consider the context and impact of Rippon. This is the most brooding, dark fruited and spice-laden Tinker’s I have seen.Quite brutish in a way, but not untoward, just heftier, lumbering, palate sticking, dense than this wines has been for me before. Dark chocolate, clove and cinnamon characters mesh with a thick weave of emery board tannins. The wine is all dark fruit, mocha, earthiness and toasty wood characters, quite lavish, shades of midnight for pinot noir, very long in flavour, expressive and guttural. It’s quite beguiling in its way, though get set for the atypical expression.”– 93 Points, by Mike Bennie Winefront