100% Pinot Noir grown on the Henschke Lenswood Vineyard in the Adelaide Hills, managed with organic and biodynamic practices.
Maturation:
Hand-selected Pinot Noir was whole-bunch pressed, settled, cool fermented and underwent malolactic fermentation; the wine was subsequently bottle fermented and left on lees in bottle to age. Multiple vintages from 1997 to 2018 were combined in an assemblage-style blend in December 2022, as a multi-vintage, mature disgorged blanc de noir. The wine is sealed under a stainless steel closure to allow the wine to knit together and retain its bottle-age complexity.
Background:
In 1997, Stephen and Prue embarked on a journey to handcraft an ultra-premium sparkling wine from pinot noir and selected only the finest fruit from specific clones and sites suited for this purpose at the Henschke Lenswood Vineyard. The vineyard contains some of the oldest pinot noir vines in the Adelaide Hills. The first release in 2008 celebrated Henschke’s 140th anniversary. This limited seventh release is a blend across 23 exceptional vintages all matured on tirage. It is a true expression of its site and celebrates 155 years of Henschke family winemaking. This sparkling is named as a tribute to adored matriarch Johanne Ida Selma, whose grandfather Nicolaus Stanitzki planted the first vines on the Hill of Grace Vineyard. Selma married third-generation winemaker Paul Alfred Henschke in 1907, entwining the family histories for all time. The youngest of Selma and Alfred’s twelve children, Cyril became the fourth-generation Henschke winemaker.
