Winemaker Notes
Intensely aromatic with a mix of plum, violet, cherry, dried herb, wet slate and mixed spice flavors. A complex, harmonious wine that gives equal prominence to all of its flavors without allowing one to dominate. Needs time to fully express its potential.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is as chunky red with deep and rich red berry and ripe strawberry character with chocolate and hazelnut. Full and creamy textured with a long and flavorful finish. Very polished. Still slightly closed. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
he 2020 Block 5 Pinot Noir is a gorgeous wine, with nettles and flowers, woodsy spices and ductile tannin. This is a wine of power and finesse hand in hand, and I really appreciate the way it extends out through the finish. The subtle reduction notes that play out on the nose weave into the palate and contribute notions of forest floor, peat and fresh spice and emphasize the succulent register of fruit. This vintage looks eminently more impressive than the last time I tasted it, and I liked it well then. 14% alcohol.
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.”
Home to the globe’s most southerly vineyards, which are cultivated below the 45th parallel, Central Otago is a true one-of-a-kind wine growing region, but not only because of its extreme location.
Central Otago is more dependent on one single variety than any other region in New Zealand—and it isn’t Sauvignon blanc. They don’t even make Sauvignon blanc there.
Pinot Noir claims nearly 75% of the region’s vineyards with Pinot Gris coming in a far second place and Riesling behind it. This is also New Zealand’s only wine region with a continental climate, giving it more diurnal and seasonal temperature shifts than any other.
The subregion of Bannockburn has enjoyed the most success historically but the area’s exceptional growth has moved to the promising regions of Cromwell/Bendigo and Alexandra districts. Central Otago is known for its fruity and full-bodied Pinot noir. With the freedom to experiment here, growers and winemakers are easily exhibiting the area’s great potential.