Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Aromatic and very spicy, with clove, cinnamon and nutmeg details that lend plenty of intrigue to the core of fleshy plum and blackberry flavors. Fresh and vibrant, but with some brooding earth and forest floor notes that gain momentum on the velvety finish. Drink now through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium-deep ruby-purple in color, the 2013 Calvert Pinot Noir has a nose of dusty earth, warm red currants and cassis accented by pencil lead and hints of baking spices. Medium bodied and tightly-knit on the palate, it gives a great concentration of red and black fruit flavors, chewy tannins and earthy layers that emerge in the long finish.
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.”
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.