Akitu Pinot Noir Blanc 2024 (Case 0f 6 x 75cl)

Case price equivalent to £29 per bottle

Akitu Pinot Noir Blanc 

Region: Central Otago, New Zealand

Vintage: 2024

Bottle size: 6 x 75cl

Grape: Pinot Noir

ABV: 13%

Light lemon with a green gold hue. The faintest of pink blushes emerges when you swirl the wine around the glass, like some kind of prismatic phosphorescence. Immediately alluring and inviting, perfumed but warm and slightly heady with a confluence of floral and fruit derived aromatics. Yin and Yang with yellow rose petal and citrus blossom, musk stick and cinnamon, clover honey and pickled ginger with a distance scent of Manuka flowers on the Ying. To the Yang; stone-fruit, rainer cherries, ripe beurre bosc pear, nougat and a hint of quince. All cast across drying river rocks, on a warm and still afternoon.  

This wine is all about the vineyard and minimal winemaking interference. So, the question is, how to best capture the sense of place and variety with so few levers to pull? Picking in the cool of the morning and whole bunch pressing to ensure minimal phenolic extraction. Gentle juice handling and into ferment with fluffy juice solids has given us fruit expression with a cosy overlay of silky yeast derived texture on a harmonic tannin base. Partial ferment in old French oak adds another dimension of complexity.

Akitu was established in 2001 in the heart of Central Otago’s Upper Clutha basin. Their 12 hectare vineyard sits alone at 380m above sea level on a stunning north facing slope just minutes from Lake Wanaka. Founder Andrew Donaldson, a native to Central Otago and a Pinot Noir specialist, had long believed in the region’s ability to produce exceptional world class Pinot Noir and when the opportunity arose to purchase the Mount Barker site, he did so with this in mind.

https://akitu.wine