RAY-MONDE VINEYARD PINOT NOIR

Josh Cooper says ’22 is the best wine he’s made off this site to date. It’s more savoury and, in a way, structured compared with the Doug’s Vineyard pinot. This comes out with dark cherries, rhubarb, kirsch and licorice root, plus warm earth and bitumen aromas. Complex, rich but not heavy, fuller bodied, with ample tannins all plush and textural, quite distinctive in how they feel across the palate; then fine acidity corrals everything into one seamless offering. Rating: 96 Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (Aug 2024)

Viticulture: Lutte raisonée/sustainable, no synthetic fungicides or herbicides.

The Ray-Monde Vineyard was established in 1988 by the Lakey family in South Gisborne at 400m above sea level on the southern edge of the Macedon Ranges GI, to which it once belonged. The gently North-East facing 5ha of Pinot Noir form a small part of the 230ha grazing farm now managed by John and Tristia Lakey, on which sheep, cattle, chicken and more are reared, with an emphasis on sustainable grazing and re-vegetation. Like Captains Creek, this is another true mixed farm, and I’m privileged to be able to purchase fruit.

The vineyard is unique for the area, being planted gravelly ironstone and basaltic clay soils, with very little top soil and a huge amount of “Bluestone” rock just below the surface. This lean soil together with vine age results in incredibly concentrated grapes, with thick skins and ripe stems even at low sugar levels. Typically, ripening occurs around a week earlier than Doug’s Vineyard.

Once hand harvested in the cool of morning, with careful sorting in the vineyard, grapes were transferred to open fermenter with 20% as whole bunches and the remainder de-stemmed. The must was then allowed to soak 4-5 days at its cool ambient temperature until fermentation commenced.

Thereafter the grapes were gently extracted by a combination of pumping over and pigeage by foot. The wine was then pressed after a total of three weeks on skins and transferred to a single new (Laurent “Magic Cask” thick stave, blonde toast), single one-year-old Stockinger 300l and three old (6-10yo) oak Burgundian piece for lees ageing for 12 months. This was followed by four months in stainless steel on fine lees, before racking and bottling, unfined and unfiltered. The only addition tothe wine is a small dose of sulphur.

Bright garnet. Ray-Monde is filled with the aromas and flavours of black cherry, kirsch, violet, and spice. Medium bodied with long, fine, silky tannin, it is a very “gourmand” wine, yet fantastically fresh and brightly lit.

Approachable in youth due to the beautiful balance, the tannic presence and quality suggest it should also age gracefully, gaining additional complexity along the journey.