Saint Clair Estate Pinot Noir

In 2001 Saint Clair introduced a ‘grading system’ for all its vineyards different wine batches and marks them out of 10 for quality each year. This provides valuable information with records now over a period of time showing which vineyards provide the best fruit and which varieties produce the best quality in each of the vineyards. The grading system is also used extensively as a management tool for identifying and improving best vineyard practices, and for payments to growers.

At the winery each batch (or vineyard) was held cold for five days prior to fermentation to help with colour and flavour extraction. The juice was then inoculated with yeast for the primary alcoholic fermentation and hand plunged up to eight times daily during the height of fermentation.