Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Robust and intense, with plenty of fresh earth notes, muscular tannins and smoky tea, rosemary and roasted plum flavors. Complex and generous on the finish, ending harmoniously. Drink now through 2026.
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Wine Enthusiast
This doesn't have the same floral notes on the nose as the other 2014s from Escarpment, but instead offers aromas of baking spices, vanilla and black cherries. In the mouth, it's crisp and medium in weight—not the most generous wine right now—but the tart, lingering finish suggests it should age well.
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.