Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2019 Mt Difficulty Pinot Noir is an outstanding example of why Central Otago is one of the world's best places for Pinot. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with elegant aromas and flavors: dried strawberries, fragrant spices, and a dusting of chocolate. (Tasted: June 7, 2024, San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
A fragrant nose of cherries, leafy notes, sweet spices, smoke and vanilla. Medium body with sleek tannins and bright acidity. Punchy and crunchy with freshness and a core of fruit on the mid-palate. Flavorful finish with excellent length. Drink now or hold.
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.