Te Mata Estate
Alma Pinot Noir 2024 750ml

Alma ’24 presents a captivating cherry red hue with a hint of purple. Its aroma is immediately enticing, featuring redcurrants, strawberries, fresh prunes, and ripe raspberries, complemented by delicate notes of violet, thyme, sage and warming chai spices. On the palate, the wine’s weight and volume are further enhanced, creating a velvety texture that balances refreshing fruit with powdery tannins. Dark cherries and ripe plums blend seamlessly with liquorice and mulberry, culminating in a long finish of fruit sweetness and spice. A masterpiece of detail and concentration and irresistibly enjoyable.

Alma ’24 is closed with a Diam cork and will evolve in bottle for 10 years from harvest.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

pH: 3.68

Total acidity as tartaric: 5.3gpl

Alcohol: 14.0%

Residual Sugar: Dry

VINEYARDS

Separate parcels of fully ripened pinot noir grapes were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s Woodthorpe vineyard between 7 and 12 March 2024.

WINEMAKING                                                                                                                       

The individual lots were each destemmed and given a traditional warm-plunged fermentation. The resulting wines underwent extended maceration on skins before pressing. The separate wines were all run to a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barriques for 10 months’ maturation, with 33% being new oak.

ORIGIN

Alma celebrates Dr James Thomson, a hero of the 1854 Battle of the Alma during the Crimean War and forefather to Te Mata Estate’s Buck family. Knowing the vanquished enemy soldiers had already contracted cholera, Dr Thomson volunteered to tend to their wounds, saving the lives of over four hundred, and sacrificing his own in the process. T he medal he was awarded for this selfless act of valour appears on the label of Alma Pinot Noir.