Clark Estate Late Harvest Pinot Gris 2022

The 2022 Late Harvest Pinot Gris has 177g/L residual sugar, giving it a beautiful creamy mouthfeel with delicious honeyed, dried fruit flavours, very fine acidity.

Late in the year, as the leaves start to fall off, the weather cools down rapidly and the fruit begins to rot. At this stage, the cool temperatures and dry days let the botrytis fungi work its magic as it starts to reduce the berries into honeyed raisins. Conditions for this process are not always perfect, so when they are, we head out and pick what we can. Volumes are usually very small but the reward is heavenly.

When the weather conditions are ideal for this style, the grapes are left on the vine to rot into botrytised honeyed clumps. Once all the bunches have succumbed to the fungus known as noble rot, we pick everything. The beauty of pinot gris is the berries stick together rather than fall onto the ground. This allows us to pick virtually everything we have left, increasing our yield significantly.

The grapes were lightly pressed into a bin and the juice poured back into the press to help absorb all the delicious flavours as well as hydrate the driest berries. After 8 hours, the juice was pressed into barrels to complete fermentation.