Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Lovely ripe red cherry, dark plum and raspberry perfume with a note of cinnamon and smoke. There’s good texture here and some layers of complexity running from savory to violet. Fresh and elegant.
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James Suckling
Bright red cherries and blueberries on the nose and palate. This has an elegantly fresh, chalky feel. Bright, even and balanced. Very drinkable, flavorsome and elegant pinot. Drink now. Screw cap.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is an approachable drop now, but could happily cellar for another seven to eight years. The fragrant nose offers ripe red cherry, floral, cinnamon, clove, damp earth and a lick of oak spice. Medium bodied, the palate is slippery textured and laced together with savory, grainy tannins. The oak rears up a little on the palate but is relatively balanced by the tangy red berry fruit.
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Wine Spectator
Dark, fleshy blackberry and black cherry flavors are intense and concentrated, with notes of fresh earth, forest floor and white pepper on a velvety frame. Hints of black tea linger on the finish.
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.