Winemaker Notes
It will continue to develop for up to 15 years and compliment roast meats, game and charcuterie.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Beautifully transparent with complex aromas of violets, cranberries, mulberries, morels, rosemary stems, rotisserie and oyster shells. Tight and very fine tannins alongside bright acidity support vibrant fruit and herbs. Refined and bright. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Robust and settled into its muscular, dense frame, this offers abundant red and blue fruit flavors, with toasted herbs, rose petal, fresh tobacco and loamy earth. All of the details fit together wonderfully, with strong-brewed Earl Grey notes on the finish. Drink now through 2030.
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Wine Enthusiast
Quite the introvert at the moment, this likely needs more time in bottle to unravel. At the moment—with vigorous swirling in glass—it ekes out red- and blueberry fruit, bakingspice and some vanillin-oak characters. The palate is wound tightly by the tannins, and lofty acidity adds to the austerity.
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.