• French oak
• Blackcurrant
• Woodspice
• Firm tannins

Ink dark ruby in colour with spice, graphite, tar and woodsmoke on the nose. Concentrated and powerful as blackcurrant, blood plum and violets fill the glass, followed by spice, licorice and ferrous notes through the mid-palate. Tannins are firm, definitively Bendigo in stature, with some suppleness from the supporting oak, and a dark fruit core charging to a long finish. We expect this wine to evolve with careful cellaring for 10 years.

Our Ghost Town wines are an exploration of the unique character of Central Otago sub-regions beyond our home in Bannockburn. Central Otago is dotted with the deserted relics of a mining era bygone. Located in Bendigo, once home to over 2000 Chinese miners during the 1860s and 70s, Ghost Town is planted in mature Pinot Noir. Planted in 2002, Ghost Town is at a high elevation rising from 340m to 382m. It sees slightly warmer temperatures than Bannockburn during the peak of the ripening period, although harvest can be a week or so later than our Bannockburn vineyards due to this elevation.

The 2023 growing season in Central Otago was vastly different to the rest of the country. We came out of a mild, wet winter to a warm and unusually still spring which meant strong shoot growth and fruit set. Post flowering, the summer heat increased, and Cromwell experienced it’s hottest January on record. We started picking in the middle of March however, a blast of cold weather from the south during the first week of April put a welcome handbrake on ripening which meant the majority of our grapes developed more flavour and tannin ripeness. We finished harvesting in mid-May, making it a longer vintage with excellent quality.

A plethora of different clones contribute to this wine, 5, 114, 777, Abel, 667 and 115, all planted on our Bendigo vineyard. Where we were able to, we co-fermented all these clonal lots to enhance early integration. Most of the fruit was destemmed, with around 20% of the fruit retained as whole clusters to help build structural intensity and help reflect the unique characteristics of the site. The wine underwent a 6-day cold soak and was hand plunged once daily; this was followed by a 8-9 day natural fermentation with temperature peaking at 28°C during which time the ferment was plunged once daily. In total, the wine stayed on skins for 28-30 days prior to pressing, settled for 3 days and then went to barrel for 12 months. The wine went through malolactic fermentation in the spring, was racked to tank the following autumn and bottled in July.

Food Pairing: Pair with steak au Poivre.