Winemaker Notes
Ideal pairings for this wine include roasted duck breast with green beens with a hazelnut and orange dressing or try a lamb loin with butternut gnocchi, purple carrot and black garlic.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
There’s a wealth of fragrant purple flowers and berries on offer here and freshness that really appeals. The palate has a fresh, sleek and supple feel with an array of fresh, juicy red-berry flavors.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir comes from vineyards in Marlborough's Southern Valleys. Richer in clay/loess than the plains, this subregion produces deeper wine as a result—in this case, marked by bold aromas of black cherries and red raspberries, with an earthy foundation and hints of sous-bois and baking spices. For an entry-level Pinot Noir, this is an impressive effort.
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Wine Enthusiast
This takes some time in the glass to reveal blueberry and red berry aromas. At their heels are herbal notes, like cocktail bitters, and stony, mineral tones, too. The silky palate is gripped by gentle tannins and filled out by nicely rounded fruit.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Light to medium garnet color, with a hint of brick on the edges; cola berry and red fruit aroma, medium depth, fresh; medium bodied, pleasant softness on the palate; dry, medium acidity, nice balance; tart red fruit flavors, medium intensity; pleasing aftertaste.
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.”
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.