Winemaker Notes
Perfect with duck
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Selected from the upper terrace at the Te Muna Road estate, where pinot noir grows in stony clay soils, this is an elegant wine with lasting scents of roses and aged beef. The tart cherry fruit buzzes with energy, adding to the wine’s gracious refinement. Open and yielding now, this will only gain complexity with a few years of bottle age.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe red berries, cola, chocolate, florals and a meaty baseline shine through on both the nose and the palate. This is juicy and fruity, with silky smooth tannins, a savory backbone and and an easy-going elegance. Simultaneously glug worthy and serious.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale ruby-purple in color, the 2014 Te Muna Road Vineyard Pinot Noir offers a nice red cherry and raspberry perfume with pretty lavender undertones. Soft, delicate and fresh, the palate contributes a pleasant savory/herbal character (20% whole bunch was employed) and it has great length.
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Wine Spectator
Juicy and plush, with wild strawberry and maraschino cherry flavors, accented by a mix of sage and white pepper details. Shows a supple texture and plenty of finesse on the detailed finish. Drink now through 2026.
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.