Grape Type: Pinot Noir
Region: Nelson, NZ
Ageing Potential: Drink now - 2025
Size: 750mL
Perfect with: Game

Why You’ll Like It?
Bottled under screwcap. Michael Glover's Mammoth Pinot Noir is made using fruit from a small area of organically tended vines in the heavy clays of Moutere, NZ. The vines were planted in 2004 with clone 5, known less prosaically as 'the Pommard clone'. The vineyard is dry grown and gained its organic certification in 2011. The gravel studded clay of this terroir is low in fertility but has the advantage of retaining enough moisture through the summer months to avoid the need for supplementary irrigation. This clay is also instrumental in building the tannic backbone evident in some of the better Moutere Pinot Noirs.

The winemaking follows that of previous releases (i.e. natural ferments and 100% whole bunches), although this year, in response to the season and to avoid excessive extraction, the wines had only 4 pigeage 'events', as Glover calls them. The wines also spent an additional 6 months in barrel; in total one year in 1/3 new Ana Sélection hogsheads (a super premium Tronçais barrel used by Nicole Lamarche and Arnaud Mortet for example) and then a further 12 months in older barriques. Glover felt this extra time in oak was important due to the power and abundant tannins in 2015.

Even with the minimal extraction, the Mammoth 2015 Pinot Noir is a dark and brooding Pinot with fabulous depth, power and length. There's serious concentration but the wine remains bright and savoury with a certain bloody, sappy core (the latter more oak than stem derived) and an abundance of fine tannins. An absolutely brilliant expression of Pinot Noir from the Upper Moutere hills which will be even better with time in the bottle or now with the right food (MG rightly recommends rabbit).