Mahi is situated in Marlborough on the north-eastern corner of the South Island of New Zealand. It was established by Brian and Nicola Bicknell in 2001, and in 2006 they purchased the historic winery giving Mahi a home and a sense of place.
The main aim of Mahi is to highlight the quality and diversity of individual vineyard sites in Marlborough. The name Mahi means “our work, our craft” and it was chosen to show that wine is their work, passion and craft while also paying respect to the history of the land and tea o Maori.
Mahi produces multiple single vineyard wines as well as a regional Marlborough range .They source grapes from over eight different vineyard sites across the region having sought out the right sites, planted with the right varieties, a number of which are farmed biodynamically and are certified organic.
The primary emphasis for all Mahi wines is texture, that offer true palate satisfaction and compliment food. All the wines are made in a ‘hands off’ style to allow the true expression of the vineyard site to shine through.
This wine comes from two vineyards throughout Marlborough, both lending different characters to the wine.
The Twin Valleys portion from the cooler Fareham Road area gives us the palate structure that we require, offering finesse to the back-palate.
The portion from Ward, approximately 45 kilometers south of Blenheim, providing great depth to the palate, with rich black fruit characters.
In the winery the grapes were predominantly destemmed before going to small vats for cold soaking prior to fermentation, allowing the extraction of soft tannins and colour at the juice stage rather than in the harsher alcoholic stage during and after fermentation. About 20% were fermented with stems or whole-bunch solely with indigenous yeasts offering a wide variety of flavours and helping us to attain better texture.
During fermentation the skins and juice were hand-plunged on average two times per day. When finished the wine was taken straight to French barriques where it sat for 15 months. The wine was then gently racked, blended, and bottled unfined.
This year, our 22nd, was again distinctive and again it was early and some serious rainfall at veraison meant that the berries were bigger this year, so the crops were slightly higher.
Starting on March the 10th we harvested quickly and finished the earliest ever. It was not
a hot vintage, so the flavours were retained, but we felt the grapes were fragile so picked
quickly as things ripened.
We saw early on that it was a bigger year and, with cooler easterlies winds predominating, we
decided to drop some bunches early, up to 18 bunches a vine in one parcel!? This really
helped as the vines managed to get the remaining bunches ripe and we were happy
with the health of the fruit.
April saved us also as it only had 19% of normal rainfall and we nearly had the last month of no
rain, which was so good.
Slightly lower sugars this year means the wine is perhaps more elegant and refined but it still shows the texture we are looking for.
A full and rich bouquet, this wine is mouth filling, ripe and supple with good complexity. Dark cherries and plums combine with soft tannins to give a well-rounded finish.
Marlborough, New Zealand
Pinot Noir
screw cap
13.5%
less than 1g/l
6.1g/l TA
