Winemaker Notes
"The wine has the fruitiness of a blue-foot mushroom, a dark and savory character to balance the clean line of black cherry flavour running through it. Spice tracks that cherry fruit, a third rail to electrify the woodsy earthiness of the wine. The flavours are long, attesting to Martinborough's talents with Pinot Noir." - Wine & Spirits, Feb 2005
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
An intriguing aroma; soy sauce, shitake mushroom with some darker berry and plum. Powdery fine tannins could possibly resolve a little further but lacks the concentration to suggest it will further develop positively in bottle.
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.”
Part of the Wairarapa region in the southern end of the country’s North Island, Martinborough is a bucolic appellation full of artisan, lifestyle wine producers. Above all else, their goals are to tend vineyards for low yields and create wines of supreme quality. Pinot noir is the main grape variety here, occupying over half of the land under vine.
Comparing topography, climate and soils, the region is nearly identical to Marlborough except that it produces top quality reds on the regular.