Winemaker Notes
#84 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2024
Bright cherry and plum notes complement spice, pepper and savoury earthy complexity. Layered and expressive, there is a core of supple fruit and fine textural tannins extending through the palate.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
I really like the crunchy character to this, with ripe, al dente pinot noir character highlighting the strawberry and lemon notes. Medium-bodied, lively and energetic with citrus and crushed stone undertones. This is so satisfying and fresh.
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Wine Spectator
Generous, juicy and concentrated, offering maraschino cherry, blackberry and white pepper notes, with pomegranate and oud hints, plus touches of caramelized brown sugar and allspice. The tannins are equally juicy, dense and plush, with a long, wonderfully expressive finish. Drink now through 2036.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Moonlight Race Pinot Noir is supple and spicy, with pink peppercorn, cherry blossom, red apple skins, a hint of blond tobacco and white pepper. The wine is light in the glass (but vibrant) and the tannins suit it—they are totally fresh and fine—finely milled and like poudre. Superb, silky, totally satisfying and enlivening.
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.