2022 Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir

Highly Rated
The most important Pinot Noir in the Prophet's Rock line up. Top of the tree Central Otago Pinot Noir here.
5.0
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
2 Reviews

Price:
Sale price$85.00
Stock:
In stock, ready to ship, only 5 units left
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Description

The Home Block Pinot Noir burst onto the NZ wine scene when its first release, the 2005 vintage, was named in Bob Campbell's top 10 Pinot Noirs in Central Otago.

Since then it has been one of the most consistently highly rated Pinot Noirs in the region.

The Home Block Pinot vines yield intense fruit, winemaker Paul Pujol mustering all he has learnt from his time at noted Oregon producer Rex Hill and in Chambolle-Musigny, Burgundy, to harness the power of his site.

It's an Old-World-Meets-New-World style of Pinot Noir. Structured, savoury and a killer in the cellar

97 points
"A fantastic pinot with dried strawberries, orange peel, terra-cotta, and dried leaves. It’s full and very layered with creamy and fine tannins that go on for minutes. Plenty of depth and very long with tension and a beautifully creamy, velvety finish.”
- James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com)

About This Wine

Since the first release in 2005, this wine has been sourced exclusively from our small Home Vineyard site up in the hills of Bendigo sub-region, Central Otago.

The vineyard sits on a high elevation (320 – 390m), steep glacial terrace high above the valley floor. The site features some of the oldest vineyard soils in the valley with the formation of the terrace occurring approximately 650K years ago. The soil age and dry Central Otago climate have combined to create the unusual clay and pedogenic lime soil structure. Beneath layers of clay at a depth of 50-80cm sits a thick layer of chalk. The 7.5ha site was prepared and planted between 1999-2001 and features 7 clones of Pinot Noir and 0.5ha of Pinot Gris. Full organic certification (Biogro) was completed prior to the 2018 vintage.

A strong focus on viticulture is the foundation of the winemaking approach. Yields are consistently managed to 30-35hl/ha or approximately 4ton/ha.

The handpicked fruit is destemmed and fermented using only indigenous ‘wild’ yeast. A key feature of our vinification is extremely low extraction, all our small open top tanks are only hand-plunged once during fermentation. The wine then spends 17 months in barrel (35% new) and undergoes indigenous malolactic fermentation. The wine is bottled unfiltered under Diam cork.

Winemaker’s Notes
2022 vintage notes

We had a cool start to spring with a fairly bleak September, meaning budburst was only fully underway in early October. October was mild and warmed up in the last week with temperatures over 20DegC as vine growth started to accelerate. November, as has often been the case, was a transition month. There were cool temperatures and rain mid-month but by the end of the month we’d had our first day hit 30C.

Our first month of ‘summer’ wasn’t especially hot, December did not have a single day that reached 30C, it was stable but mild with 53mm of rain spread throughout the month. Good growing conditions for the vines with very even shoot growth through this period and a good flowering.

January was when summer arrived, the month was dry and very warm, classic Central Otago golden weather. The warm weather continued through February with some welcome rainfall early in the month.

We started picking in mid-March with Chardonnay and conditions were perfect for harvest, mild temperatures in the mod-20’s and no rainfall after a small shower on the 8th of March. April continued the golden weather, after the first week the temperatures hovered in a range of 15-22 degrees. We were all done on the 12th of April, finishing with the Vin de Paille harvest.

As far as vintages go, everything was rather straightforward, no weather events to disrupt plans, amazing fruit and flavours and easy ferments. Right from the start the wines showed a lovely depth of flavour and concentration, bright aromatics, and good structure in the Pinot Noir.

48 barrels were made.

17 months in French oak barrels

Bottled on 6th of October 2023.

13.5% alc.

97 points - A fantastic pinot with dried strawberries, orange peel, terra-cotta, and dried leaves. It’s full and very layered with creamy and fine tannins that go on for minutes. Plenty of depth and very long with tension and a beautifully creamy, velvety finish” - James Suckling (JamesSuckling.com)

Customer Reviews

5.0
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
Based on 2 reviews
Total 5 star reviews: 2 Total 4 star reviews: 0 Total 3 star reviews: 0 Total 2 star reviews: 0 Total 1 star reviews: 0
2 reviews
  • MC
    Martin C.
    Verified Buyer
    Wine Knowledge Level Enthusiast
    12 months ago
    Wine Knowledge Level Enthusiast
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Highly recommended!

    Deep in colour. Velvety tannins. So much going on, oak & fruit. I loved it. Reasonable QPR too.

  • SB
    Scott B.
    Verified Buyer
    Wine Knowledge Level Cork Dork
    3 years ago
    Wine Knowledge Level Cork Dork
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Amazing

    Such a beautiful wine, well balanced and delicious.

Reviews LoadedReviews Added

Prophet's Rock

The Prophet's Rock project was founded in 1999.

The man behind the wines, Paul Pujol, has an enviable resume, having made wine all around the world.

After working his way through the French regions of Languedoc and Sancerre, he was perhaps the first foreign winemaker ever to be invited to head up an Alsatian winery, Kuentz-Bas where he made their six Grand Cru wines for three years. He also spent a formative vintage at Chambolle-Musigny in Burgundy which set the tone for his winemaking style under his own label.

The wines of Prophet's Rock come from two vineyards, the Home Block and the Rocky Point vineyard. Paul's mission is to let these vineyards speak for themselves.

Owner and founder Paul Pujol Prophet's Rock

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