Winemaker Notes
True to the Escarpment style showing bold complexity, texture and a mix of attractive dark cherry and plum fruit flavours. Lifted perfume of wild herbs and savory nuances such as licorice, mushroom and Chinese five spice. The palate delivers soft ripe tannins and the medium bodied palate is bathed in soft voluptuous Pinot Noir fruit flavors.
Serve with any good Asian cuisine, beef bourguignon or full-flavored fish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
There's a raw mineral edge to the nose that complements the earthy spice, cranberry and raspberry fruit. Combined, it evokes autumn: the crunch of leaves, tree sap, pine needles and dried wildflowers. The tannins are, true to region, raspy and bone dry, allowing the tart red fruit some juiciness but then sucking it away, leaving the mouth parched yet satisfied.
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James Suckling
This has a complex nose of dark cherries, wild raspberries, slate, cloves and licorice. Excellent framing with firm, fine tannins and a focused, mineral palate.
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Wine Spectator
Juicy and vibrant, with a firm structure adding a muscular edge to the core of black cherry, wild blackberry and blueberry flavors. Delivers details of dried lavender, black pepper and Earl Grey that add a complex, aromatic note on the long, expressive finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Pinot Noir is altogether more savory and dense in the mouth. This is all about roast meat crust, black peppercorns, density, brooding fruit and tannin in equal measure. This is a totally different expression of the wine—and thank god for vintage variation. It keeps life interesting, eh? Despite the ripeness, it feels like this will age nicely.
Rating: 91+
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.