Winemaker Notes
Te Wahi means ‘the place’ in te reo Maori, reflecting both the importance of terroir and the sense of finding our second home. It is a powerful wine with an opulent core of dark berry fruit and structured tannins. Over time, warm spices and notes of forest floor flourish and provide complexity.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Te Wahi Pinot Noir hails from Central Otago (to be clear), but I’ve included it in the Marlborough report, given the estate is based there. Bottled in very heavy Burgundy glass and under natural cork, this wine leads with savory, earthy notes of fresh game, black pudding, charred coffee grounds, resin, oak and inflections of peat. In the mouth, the wine is hearty and full, shaped by firm, plentiful tannins. It feels very early in its lifespan, currently. It’s an altogether savory, rich, dense wine with a long future in front of it.
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Wine Spectator
This has a wonderful savory thread, with toasted cumin, black tea and forest floor notes. Pure, fleshy and velvety, showing spiced plum, juicy black cherry and blueberry flavors, with a hint of palo santo lingering on the long, expressive finish. Drink now through 2034.
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James Suckling
Aromas of dried strawberries and black cherries with lavender and orange peel. Medium body with creamy round tannins and a beautiful finish. Hints of bark and fresh herbs.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of dried strawberries and black cherries with lavender and orange peel. Medium body with creamy round tannins and a beautiful finish. Hints of bark and fresh herbs. Very drinkable and delicious now.
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.