Winemaker Notes
Nautilus Marlborough Pinot Noir 2009 is dark ruby in colour and shows an aroma of wild raspberries, plums and spice. The palate is medium to full-bodied with generous fruit sweetness and succulent tannins combining to give a long warm finish. The primary fruit components showing in the wines youth will further develop and integrate over the next five years as the wine matures.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This wine's round red cherry flavours are layered with heady scents of autumn leaves and darker, tarry notes that lend complexity. The texture is supple and full, the sweet fruit flavours lasting with an herbal spice. For roast duck.
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Wine Spectator
Generous, with gobs of black cherry, currant, dried raspberry and plum notes, accented with sage, cedar and mineral flavors. A firm structure and thick tannins provide some appealing traction. Drink now through 2017. 900 cases imported.
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.