Sherbrooke Cellars

Prophet’s Rock

Winery

Prophet’s Rock is dedicated to producing some of the best Pinot Noir in New Zealand. Located in Central Otago, this small estate is committed to preserving the environment and to farming responsibly. To this end, they are a member of Sustainable Winegrowing NZ, an organization founded in 1995 by New Zealand’s growers in order to ensure that its members are environmentally, socially, and economically conscious in both the vineyard and the winery. The wines are intense, concentrated, yet elegant stuff that reflect the winemaker’s Alsatian training, grown in quartz-rich top soils layered over bands of chalk, clay and limestone.

The estate of Prophet’s Rock is comprised of two very distinct vineyard sites, Pisa and Bendigo. The Pisa Vineyard features warm, free-draining Lochar and Waenga soils and excellent exposure to the evening sun. The Bendigo Vineyard is located on the impressive, north-facing slopes known as Chinaman’s Terrace. This stunning site has fascinating soil composition featuring clay and chalk sub-soils mixed with schist and quartz.

Prophet’s Rock use no fertilizers in the vineyard thus forcing the vines to struggle for nutrients naturally found in the soil. Harvesting is done by hand and selection is done in the field. Once at the winery, the fruit is 100% destemmed with a high proportion of whole berries going into the fermenters. No selected yeasts are used in the fermentation process so that the wines reflect the unique flavor profile associated with the estate. The Pinot Noir sees extended cold-soak maceration and is allowed to spontaneously ferment on its own wild yeasts. After a period of manual punchdowns, the wine is left to age for 15 months in French-oak barriques from a variety of Burgundy cooperages and forests of which 35% are new. The wine is never racked before being bottled unfiltered under premium-quality cork. The Riesling and Pinot Gris come from Pisa Flats, where the soils are deep and alluvial, stony and sandy, and have a notably high mineral content. After extensive yet gentle pressing of 100% field-sorted, whole clusters, the whites are fermented on wild yeasts and left for an average of six months on the lees for maximum texture. Under 200 6-bottle cases of each of the whites are produced annually.

All their wines are sealed with a cork imported directly from Bouchon Trescasse in France normally reserved for Grand Cru producers, thus why the same mark appears on a Domaine Romanée-Conti cork as on a Prophet’s Rock cork.

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