Corofin: new releases from one of Marlborough’s most interesting producers

These are the 2019 releases from one of Marlborough’s most interesting producers. Mike and Anna Paterson have been making their own wines since 2012, and they are a micronegociant, sourcing grapes from some of the region’s top organically farmed vineyards (read my write up on a visit a couple of years ago.)

‘For us these set of wines represent the most accurate and singular expressions of site we have made to date,’ says Mike Paterson (pictured above). ‘We believe these are a unique group of wines as their personality seems to hang solely on textures and aromas without viscosity. The Pinots especially are only 12.0-12.5% alcohol but are grown on sites that demand earlier picking through abundant physiological ripeness at lower sugar levels. We certainly aren’t going out to deliberately pick early, as flavour ripeness from site to site is so individual, and being this is what we are trying to capture, we would never compromise.’

‘Generally speaking, 2019 growing season was exceptionally warm with moderate/low yields,’ says Patterson. He says that maturity was early across the region in all varieties. ‘Managing extraction especially with Pinot was crucial as tannins were a significant feature especially off the clay-based soils.’

There is a change in the sites used. The new one is the Wrekin Vineyard, which is in the foothills of the Brancott Valley, in the southern clays. It’s organically farmed, as all the sites used now are. This has meant that Mike has had to drop Cowley. And Churton takes a one year rest in 2019.

‘From 2020 harvest onwards all Corofin and Meltwater wines will be 100% organically farmed and made,’ says Paterson.

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By Jamie Goode | Wineanorak Global Wine Journal