Winemaker Notes
This wine has the fine aromatics and full-flavored cherry fruit one expects of Central Otago Pinot Noir wines with the delicate floral lift that is the hallmark of Wanaka. An exceptional wine from a great vintage. It has the classical varietal notes of sour cherries and raspberries backed by earthy and savory complexity.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
From an Australia-based wine company with projects around the world, this wine is made under the supervision of Peter Dillon. It feels grand when first poured, with lasting flavors of red-apple skin, dried cherries and stem spice. Balsamic notes, as well as that earthy dried fruit, gain precedence over the course of several days, suggesting this is best to enjoy now, in its savory, youthful intensity.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Medium garnet color; lots of leaves in the aroma, quite appealing, plum; medium bodied, some density on the palate; dry, medium acidity, fine balance; zingy black fruit flavors, black fruit, almost licorice, and tree bark; medium finish.
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.