Winemaker Notes
Te Wahi has lifted floral aromatics, hints of forest floor, graphite and five-spice characters on the nose. The palate delivers dark berry fruit and spice, succulence and generosity.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This shows plenty of fruit richness with darker cherries, toasted spices and earthy aromas, as well as some fresh violet-like florals, too. The palate is succulent, smoothly layered and has attractive tannins that build in layers to a smooth, pastry-like finish. Ready now.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A 50-50 blend of fruit from Northburn and Bannockburn (Cloudy Bay leases a portion of the Calvert Vineyard), the 2015 Te Wahi Pinot Noir is a full-bodied, plummy wine. It shows some pretty florals on the nose, but the palate is chocolaty and rich, offering hints of cola and dark-skinned plums. It's powerful and plush, with a velvety texture and lingering finish, almost verging on Californian (Russian River Valley?) in style.
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Wine & Spirits
Jim White blends this wine from two sites, Northburn in Lowburn and Calvert in Bannockburn. It’s a meaty Central Otago pinot, with crunchy red fruit that’s an equal match to the powerful oak and its heady, resinous richness. A heavyweight pinot without any excess fat, it’s built to cellar, or to decant for braised short ribs.
Cloudy Bay Vineyards, established in 1985, is today a partnership between champagne house Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin and co-founder of Cape Mentelle Vineyards in Western Australia, David Hohnen. The Cloudy Bay team is committed to producing 'wines of region' and strives to enhance the pure, bracing flavors naturally afforded by the climate and soils of Marlborough. The winery and vineyards are situated in the Wairau Valley in Marlborough at the northern end of New Zealand's South Island. This unique and cool wine region enjoys a maritime climate with the longest hours of sunshine of any place in New Zealand. Cloudy Bay has estate vineyards located at prime sites within the Wairau Valley and long-term supply agreements with five Wairau Valley growers. The main varieties grown are Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
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.