Stoneleigh Latitude Pinot Noir 2012
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James
Suckling
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Winemaker Notes
This wine would be best enjoyed with rich gamey flavors and succulent red meats such as duck confit or wild venison with warm goats cheese and roasted hazelnuts.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Plenty of cherry and cassis on the nose of this Marlborough pinot noir, which offers up a bright, lively style. The palate has chirpy acid crunch, crisp tannins and a mix of simple, toasty-oak spice and cherry flavor.
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2017- Decanter
Stoneleigh is a brand as unique as the vibrant wine they make. It’s a story of sun charged stones ripening their grapes with extraordinary richness and vibrancy of flavor that inspires wine lovers to choose them. Stoneleigh Sauvignon Blanc is 100% Sustainable and 100% Vegan. Their passion for nature inspires everything they do, from their winemaking philosophy of minimal intervention to their ancient Sunstones.
Sourced from the premium sub-region of the Wairau Valley in Marlborough, Stoneleigh wine expresses unique terroir characteristics only found in the Wairau Valley. Distinctive sunstones and stone-studded soils of their vineyards create a wine style that is fresh, crisp and vibrant. Stoneleigh’s terroir enriches their wines in a way that only nature can. The flavor of Stoneleigh.
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.”
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.