Kawarau Estate Reserve Pinot Noir 2006
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Robert
Parker
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A simple, tight nose of baked black cherries, wild strawberry and sous-bois that could do with more vigour and lift. The palate is full-bodied with saturated tannins, but with good balanced and fine acidity to cut through those chewy black cherry and plum fruits. An ambitious, almost decadent Pinot Noir and it just about pulls it off. Good winemaking at work. Tasted January 2008. Drink 2008-2015.
The fruit used for all our wines has been organically grown at our Dunstan vineyard north of Lowburn, near Cromwell in Central Otago.
From its inception, the vineyard has been managed according to strict organic principles. Herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, fungicides or synthetic fertilisers are not used.
The vineyard has had full organic certification from Bio-Gro New Zealand since 1996. Kawarau Estate is dedicated to the production of high quality wines.
We keep our yields low to maximise ripeness and fruit flavours and as a result, our Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines are fruity, refreshing and well balanced.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Home to the globe’s most southerly vineyards, which are cultivated below the 45th parallel, Central Otago is a true one-of-a-kind wine growing region, but not only because of its extreme location.
Central Otago is more dependent on one single variety than any other region in New Zealand—and it isn’t Sauvignon blanc. They don’t even make Sauvignon blanc there.
Pinot Noir claims nearly 75% of the region’s vineyards with Pinot Gris coming in a far second place and Riesling behind it. This is also New Zealand’s only wine region with a continental climate, giving it more diurnal and seasonal temperature shifts than any other.
The subregion of Bannockburn has enjoyed the most success historically but the area’s exceptional growth has moved to the promising regions of Cromwell/Bendigo and Alexandra districts. Central Otago is known for its fruity and full-bodied Pinot noir. With the freedom to experiment here, growers and winemakers are easily exhibiting the area’s great potential.