Quealy Wines Seventeen Rows Pinot Noir 2021 (6 Bottles) Mornington Peninsula

by Fine Wine Cellars

$397.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

Although it was purchased in 2003, Quealy’s home vineyard was initially planted in 1982, making this Balnarring vineyard one of Mornington’s oldest Pinot Noir sites. From that era just 17 rows of MV6 Pinot Noir remain, gifting their old-vine fruit to Quealy’s flagship Pinot Noir. The entire vineyard is located on a gentle north-facing slope, on shallow loams over clay. From 2019 these vines have been certified organic.

The 2019 was harvested on the 4th of March, entirely destemmed (with zero sulphur added) and wild-fermented in small, one-tonne pots. Only the free-run wine was settled and racked to 300-litre barriques (33% new) with the balance matured in equal proportions of one-year-old and two-year-old wood.

Seventeen Rows is Quealy’s most savoury and complex wine. It’s crammed with old-vine intensity and has serious structure; and dare we say it, it’s more Burgundian than the other Pinots in the range. A unique product of this site and these vines, the 2019 may look a little lighter in the glass, but looks can be deceiving. There is an earthy, savoury intensity here that comes from both the site and the age of the vines, a feature also evident on the palate—which has the kind of engaging old-vine creaminess, nuance and texture we don’t often see in Australian Pinots.

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Description

Winery
2018 Vintage was long and cool. We harvested in two tranches – the 1st and 6th March. A maceration time of 21-28 days. Carefully, totally destemmed, mindful of keeping the integrity of each berry; all transfer of must was with gravity.

Fermentation in 1 ton pots and then later compiled as one so that the musts could safely be macerated with all the benefits of finality with both yeast and malolactic bacteria fermentation, and the rich cool ocean of opportunity when skins and wine spend the right time together. The skins settled to the bottom and then the wine was racked off.

The skins were then drained of their small portion of free run wine. The wine was then settled and racked to 33% new wood; as 300L barriques. The wine was left undisturbed except for regular topping and tasting until the following April when it was racked off lees in preparation for bottling in May 2019.

Vineyard
Seventeen Rows of MV6 Clone of Pinot Noir, each row wide enough for the old orchard tractor, 3.2 – 3.5 metres and each row 200 metres long.

The wide planting bathes the vines in sunshine, the organic viticulture program involves caring for the soil so that the root mass is larger than the canopy. The result is healthy vines, that can withstand the duress of summer, function efficiently throughout the season accumulating flavour and tannin in the grapes without much stress.

The vines were planted in 1982 and currently we are renewing some trunks that have suffered from tractor implement knocks when we transitioned to organic. The trellis is rudimentary however adequate for these widely spaced small vines.

Fine Wine Cellars

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