Winemaker Notes
Bright fruit notes entice with cherry, rosehip and spice box aromas, but there are also rich earthy and dark savoury notes here. The palate is one of elegance, concentration and power, while supple harmonious tannins give wonderful persistence to the wine. Vibrant and youthful now, this wine also promises very good cellaring potential.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Generous, stylish, spicy and expressive, with plump blackberry, clove and plum flavors wrapped around a thread of black licorice. The texture is smooth and lush, while the tannins provide appealing traction on the finish, where a fresh green sage note comes in. Drink now through 2033.
-
James Suckling
This offers sappy, spicy red cherries with a brambly, forest-floor edge to the nose, leading to a palate with impressive cherry-pip flavor and a smooth, gently nutty wrap of tannins.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Delicate notes of sous-bois, beets, raspberries and cherries all emerge on the nose of the 2016 Moonlight Race Pinot Noir, which blends fruit from Burn Cottage's own estate vineyard with a couple of nearby sites. It's medium-bodied, silky and easy-drinking on the palate, with a soft tea-like, herbal note on the finish.
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.