Mammoth
Mammoth’s connection with the Moutere hills of Nelson began with the planting of a vineyard in Gardner Valley Road in Upper Moutere more than thirty years ago. Today Mammoth produces some of the region’s best wines. Nelson has some of the highest sunshine hours in New Zealand – averaging 2400 hours of sun annually. It also has long dry summer days and cool nights: the perfect combination to provide lifted fruit character and good natural acidity. The key to Nelson’s ability to produce outstanding cool-climate varietal fruit is the combination of ideal seasonal conditions and the soils of the Moutere Hills where the North facing slopes are on Moutere clay. The ‘Moutere gravels’ are relatively youthful – a 2 million year old gravel sheet that is over 1 km deep and 25 km wide. The gravel threaded clay subsoil, of low fertility, has the advantage of draining water away on the slopes but retaining enough moisture through the summer months to avoid the need for supplementary irrigation. This clay is instrumental in building the tannic backbone evident in some of the better Moutere Pinot Noirs. The Mammoth Pinot Noir is made using fruit from the most masculine block, at the top of Woollaston’s Mahana Vineyard. It was planted in 2004 with clone 5. The vineyard is dry grown and gained its organic certification in 2011. A dry tap is the foundation to site expression here; Irrigation dilutes and denies character, expression and the very soul of the site.
Mammoth employs a winemaking direction that is all about longevity, structure and long term complexity. I would describe the ‘style’ as cerebral, even intellectual. “Whole bunch wines do not come to you, you must go to them,” says Mammoth winemaker Michael Glover.
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