What I was chasing this year with the Gamay, in light of the cooler year and the 2019 being quite funky and bunchy, was clarity/purity with vibrant red fruit and no herbal characters. So we picked a touch earlier, whole bunch elements were less macerated and more carbonic, and we had a higher proportion of destemmed fruit/cold soak (60%).
Bunch and berry ferments were pressed together for maturation in old French puncheons for nine months. A minimal addition of SO2 was made in September. The ine was racked and coarsely filtered, bottled in December with no finings.
Certainly the bright fruit aromatics are there, but I really like the tension between the fruit and the acid and the quite insistent 2021 tannin profile. It’s light on its feet but then hits you with a lingering core of savouriness. Our Airlie Bank Garden Red has a similar profile. - Tim Shand, Punt Road