Hoddles Creek 1er Yarra Valley Pinot Blanc 2008
This gorgeuosly unsual Pinot Blanc, with its old fashioned label, sings a sweet song of delicate white flowers, intensly flavoured grape-puply texture and a clean, light (12.8% alcohol) grapefruity finish. Max Allen, The Australian
In the "contact us" page on this site we offer the following little gem of Mattinson humour : Unless you think you have an exceptional example, please do not send samples of root beer, ginger beer, mead, chenin blanc, or pinot blanc, as quite a few of these make us queasy. It still makes me chuckle..not least because I love root and ginger beer (and I should mind how I phrase that), another bunch of Chenin arrived last week, and lastly, this is indeed an exceptional example of Pinot Blanc..
It smells of pear, musk, flint and in the mouth tastes of grapefruit too. Dry and roughly textured with a spicy aspect, brisk but balanced acidity and a pithily (wordplay intended) bitter dry grippy finish. It’s a top food wine (meant in the best possible way) that has great style and interest. A polarising style it may well be, but I think it’s great. Drink : 2008 - 2014 94 Points, Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
A better understanding of our vineyards has led us to believe that certain blocks excel year after year. These blocks have always been treated separately to enable us to fine tune viticulture and winemaking in the thought of releasing some single block wines in the future. Well that time has come. In October, 2008 we will be releasing a Pinot Blanc. This has been previously been blended away just before bottling to our Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. In 2009, a single block Pinot Noir and Chardonnay will also be released under this label. The wines will retail for $35 per bottle.
We have decided to call these new wines 1er Yarra Valley as we believe that they showcase the future of the Yarra Valley. The Upper Yarra will be the place of these varieties as the climate slowly warms.
Pinot Blanc is a variety that needs a fair amount of attention in the vineyard. The variety is prone to over cropping and botrytis. We shoot thin the variety to minimize disease concerns, and then reduce the crop level to about 1.5 tonnes per acre. We aim for an open canopy with dappled light to achieve 60 per cent exposure on the bunches.
In the winery, we treat this wine very gentle to retain freshness and lift. . The Pinot Blanc is picked in the early morning, and refrigerated down to 2°C for 12 hours. Then it is gentle destemmed, not crushed and pressed into tank. The juice is left to settle clear for 4-5 days with no enzyme or acid addition. The wine is then fermented coolish (15°C) for about 10 days till dryness. The wine remains in stainless steel for four months with occasional lees stirring. The wine is then filtered, not fined and bottled.
Analysis: Alcohol 12.8, TA 7.2, pH 3.2
Vine Age: 12 years
Retail Price: $35
Production: 2500 bottles
Pinot Blanc
French white vine variety, member of the Pinot family and particularly associated with Alsace, where most of its French 1,300 ha/3,200 acres in 2000 were to be found. It was first observed in Burgundy at the end of the 19th century, a white mutation of pinot gris, which is itself a lighter-berried version of pinot noir. Although its base is Burgundian, today it is found all over central Europe.
For many years no distinction was made between Pinot Blanc and chardonnay since the two varieties can look very similar. No Pinot Blanc is notable for its piercing aroma; its scent arrives in a cloud. Most wines based on Pinot Blanc are also relatively full bodied, which has undoubtedly helped reinforce the confusion with Chardonnay, not only in Burgundy but also in north east Italy, where it is known as pinot bianco. Although Chardonnay dominates white burgundy, Pinot Blanc is technically allowed into wines labelled bourgogne Blanc and into some white mâcon, but is no longer grown in any quantity in Burgundy.
Even in Alsace, Pinot Blanc's French stronghold, it is less important in terms of total area planted than Riesling, Silvaner, or even the white auxerrois with which it is customarily blended in Alsace, to be sold as 'Pinot Blanc'. In luxembourg, on the other hand, the higher acidity of Pinot Blanc makes it less highly regarded than Auxerrois.
While in Alsace it is regarded as something of a workhorse (and sometimes called Clevner or Klevner), it has been generally held in higher esteem by the Germans, who have a much greater area planted, 3,100 ha in 2003, than the French (although just less in total than they have of the Pinot Gris they call Grauburgunder). Under the fashionable name Weissburgunder, it remains Germany's sixth most planted white wine cultivar, with vinous personalities ranging from the full, rich examples of Baden and the Pfalz to relatively delicate, mineral-inflected variations along the Nahe and Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, and with quality aspirations ranging from a workaday norm to occasional brilliance. It is popular with growers seeking food-friendly wines that are softer than Riesling and can show local characters.
As Pinot Bianco it is a popular dry white in Italy but it is in Austria that, as Weissburgunder, the variety reaches its greatest heights, and certainly its greatest must weights. Accounting for about 6 per cent of the country's total vineyards, it is grown in all regions. As a dry white varietal, Weissburgunder is associated with an almond-like scent, medium to high alcohol, and an ability to age, but it has achieved its greatest glory in Austria in ultra-rich, botrytized trockenbeerenauslese form, often blended, typically with welschriesling (acting out the respective parts of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc in Sauternes, according to top practitioner Alois Kracher of Burgenland).
Pinot Blanc is widely disseminated over eastern Europe. In Slovenia, Croatia, and Vojvodina, it is widely grown and may be called Beli (White) Pinot. It is also grown in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and is widely used in Hungary to produce full-bodied, rather anodyne dry whites more suitable for export than indigenous vine varieties.
Vine-growers in the New World recognize that Pinot Blanc has lacked Chardonnay's glamour but there were still 700 acres/280 ha in the mid 2000s of a variety called Pinot Blanc in California, mainly in Monterey, where it is sometimes treated to barrel ageing and the full range of Chardonnay wine-making tricks, to creditable effect. Older vines bearing this name are almost certainly not Pinot Blanc but the Muscadet grape melon (now proven to be another member of the extended Pinot family).
Elsewhere in the New World, Pinot Blanc is largely ignored in favour of the most famous white wine grape. Jancis Robinson, Oxford Companion to Wine
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