Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This is a Narnia wine, its flavors otherworldly, their shape as regal and bold as a lion’s mane, the ruff of a strange and magical beast feeding on onion grass, herbs, flowers and then meat grilled over an open fire. It has a vibrant lightness and energy that lives in the shadows. This grows on the top terrace at Te Muna Road, where the Huangarua River left a deep bed of gravel and stones under a thin surface of sandy loam more than 20,000 years ago. Steve Smith, MW, planted eight clones of pinot noir segmented into 40 blocks, harvested late after a cool season, fermented with 10 percent whole clusters in oak vats and stainless steel tanks, and aged the wine in French oak barriques (25 percent new). All of that combines into a pinot noir with outrageous complexity and the vitality to support it for a decade in the bottle.
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Wine Spectator
Elegant, with dried floral, baked apple and white pepper aromas and Earl Grey tea, wet clay and wild strawberry notes. The texture is supple, verging on creamy. Drink now through 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is wonderfully supple and approachable, light on the palate yet not lacking for flavor. Hints of violets and toast flame silky cherry fruit which glides easily through the long finish. Drink now–2018.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby in color, the 2012 Te Muna Road Vineyard Pinot noir has very pretty red cherry, raspberry and pomegranate notes over hints of violets, pepper and moss. Light to medium-bodied with just enough elegant flavour supported by chewy tannins, it finishes with good persistence.
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.