"Could you ever need me,
And would you know how?"
Christie McVie (1979)
And there begins Tusk, Fleetwood Mac's epic follow up to their epic album Rumours. After that album blew up the entire planet with its undeniable and enduring awesomeness, only a band of intergalactic genius would kick off the follow up with an introspective ballad like Over & Over.
What a track and what a false dawn, as the next track The Ledge blows the collective Fleetwood Mac fan hive band into smithereens with its overt weirdness and foreshadows the fact that nothing about 'the Mac' will ever be the same again. What an important moment in music history, the band that helped create the sound of smooth LA cool announces its end, with Roxy Music's Avalon to come as a fitting epitaph in 1982.
For this reason, Over & Over signifies the ability to break with the past, transcend expectation and convention, to redefine yourself, and to be thoroughly awesome all at the same time.
Over & Over Pinot Noir celebrates a very special ultra high elevation site, the Eminence VIneyard on the Whitlands Plateau (830m). Grown by the wonderful Burder family and the ecology focused Peter Allen, this Pinot shows the proper plasticity that a single vineyard in an extreme clime should. Muscular in moderate years, ephemeral in the cooler ones...
Production notes: 2024 was a rare year for us on the hill. No real weather pressures allowed for ample ripening and a lack of pressure on us to make a picking call which almost felt like cheating compared to the last 3 years.
Picked on the 1st of April, almost a full month earlier than the 2023. Whole berry ferment without any whole bunch. Pumped over twice daily for a 12 day period during its natural fermentation and then hand plunged for 4 days before being pressed right at the end of ferment. Settled, racked and then transferred to 90% old french oak and 10% new Hungarian hogshead. 11 months resting in oak and then the blend was put together at which point it was racked once more prior to bottling. Unfined, unfiltered with a small addition of sulphur.
Tasting notes: Blackcurrant and plummy fruit with spice and earth on the nose. The palate is where the extra ripeness really shines, fleshier with a silky mid pallet yet retaining the acidity we have come to love from this part of the world. Serve with a herb crusted lamb rack with beetroot cerviche.
