Kindeli - 'Tinto' - Pinot Noir, Merlot, Riesling - Upper Moutere, Nelson, NZ - 2023

Satellite's Hot Take

A delight - all fresh cofermented fruit with a bit of CO2 on the pop in lieu of any added sulfur! It's a party!

Notes from the Winery/Importer

A co-fermented blend of Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Rieslingplanted on a combination of Moutere Clay and Gravel. 10% went through carbonic maceration. The remainder spent between five and twelve days on skins with roughly 10% stem inclusion. Fermentation and élevage were done in stainless steel. The wine is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and without sulphur. 12% ABV

Notes on the Producer

Kindeli wines are the product of Alex Craighead and Josefina Venturino. Alex, born in Australia and raised in New Zealand, studied wine at Lincoln University and soon after began to travel the world working across many wine regions. In 2008 he met Josefina , a landscape architect from Argentina and after living around the world for a few years, they returned to New Zealand. Drawn to low intervention wines and winemaking, there wasn’t a lot on offer in New Zealand, so they began to experiment with zero sulphur wines in 2013. In 2014 they released their first wines in Martinborough. What began as a hobby soon became a business. In 2016 they moved to Nelson, where they bought an existing organic winery and vineyard. Based in Upper Moutere, in the Nelson/Tasman region of New Zealand, we have a home vineyard of 4.5 hectares, planted with 14 different varieties. In addition we lease another three vineyards totalling an another 9.5 hectares. The home vineyard is entirely clay, with the lease vineyards being predominantly clay on silt. All our vineyards are managed organically with organic certification through Biogro New Zealand. We've received a crop of 2021s from Alex Craighead at Kindeli. Alex’s isolated corner of New Zealand's South Island is windswept, wild and sparsely populated, a country of fishermen and shepherds, with no noble tradition of winemaking. That hasn't stopped him from writing a tradition of his own. 2021 marks a milestone, with nearly all of the fruit coming from Alex's estate, a North-facing slope in the Upper Moutere composed of sedimentary clay. As usual, Blanco and Tinto are field blends meant for drinking fast. Verano is a true cross section of all red and white grapes in the vineyard, produced by rolling-ferment throughout harvest. -Percy Wines