Winemaker Notes
The 2019 Nautilus Pinot Noir is dark ruby in color. The complex nose displays dark cherries, plums, earthy notes and a touch of toasty spice. The palate is concentrated and elegant with a fine dense core of tannins and a long savory finish.
Beautiful accompanied by venison with star anise.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
A gentle perfume of cloves, red berries and orange peel lend a potpourri-like feel to this Pinot. It's slightly sappy and autumnal, with a raw mineral edge. The palate is lightweight but with a sturdy spine of sap-like tannins and snappy acidity that feels like you're taking a bite rather than a sip. There is an ease and expressiveness here that's easy to love.
Editors' Choice -
James Suckling
A fragrant nose of cranberries, sour cherries, redcurrants, dried flowers and sweet spices. Medium body with crisp acidity and velvety tannins. Round and creamy with spicy character to the finish. Long and vibrant.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Southern Valleys Pinot Noir is concentrated and densely packed with flavor and tannin. The Southern Valleys are typified not only by the undulating hillside upon which the vineyards are perched but most notably by the soils, which are heavier and more loess dominant than the rocky river bed of the Wairau Valley. This gives the density and intensity that we see here, with hints of game and blood, strawberry, sour red cherry, some dried herbs and a hint of caper brine, plus cinnamon spice, to boot. Classy wine. These Southern Valleys Pinot are exciting because they achieve admirable tannin density and flavor ripeness at relatively low alcohol, lending them finesse and detail.
-
Vinous
The 2019 Pinot Noir Southern Valleys offers a round and wholesome mouthful of wine. It is savory and deeply fruity with balanced cedar-like oak nuances meeting berries and wild herbs. There's a sense of hands being firmly off in this wine with its pure character and its mouth coating tannins as if the wine was not pushed in any direction. The naturally firm acidity of the cool Marlborough climate shows through on its taut, firm finish. While not the most concentrated of Pinots I've tasted, this will age gracefully thanks to its structural components
-
Wine Spectator
Generous and plump, with wild berry, black cherry and red licorice flavors that are juicy and spicy, which also show off dried rose petal, matcha and orange zest details, adding an aromatic, elegant lift on the silky frame.
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.