Kim Crawford Rise-and-Shine Creek Central Otago Pinot Noir 2006
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Robert
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Rise-and-Shine Creek is the home of gold mining in Bendigo, Central Otago. These grapes are from the Clearvue Vineyard on the northern end of the Bendigo Loop road in the cool climate region of the acclaimed Central Otago. The vines were intensely managed to achieve beautiful balance for this vineyards first cropping season. A very early harvest period allowed individual clones to be picked for optimum flavor and maturity over a three week window.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Central Otago "Rise-and-Shine" Creek Pinot Noir was sourced from the Clearvue vineyard in Bendigo. A divine expression of Pinot Noir, it has a lovely nose with a sense of controlled opulence: red cherry fruit, Doris plum and blueberry. The palate is full-bodied with good fruit concentration, very pure with fine tannin structure, and a mixture of both red and black cherries on the mineral-rich finish.
"Kim Crawford Wine Limited" was the first of New Zealand’s "virtual wineries" i.e. sourcing grapes in from various wine regions and made at other wineries. Founded by Kim and his wife Erica who ran the business from their Auckland home in 1996, their wines were an immediate success and they opened their own winery in Marlborough in 2000 so that they no longer relied upon contract facilities. In addition they secured their first vineyard to meet demand. The tenets are to give consumers reliable, top-quality New Zealand wines and to explore more esoteric grape varieties and vinification techniques.
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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.