Winemaker Notes
With maturing vines and a truly favourable year for Gewurz, this wine speaks with real accuracy and pride of its place. This, along with slow, whole bunch pressings, wild ferments and extended lees contact, has resulted in a wine which is defined by remarkable grace and clarity.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A tight and focused white with lavender, sage, dried apples, melon and lychees. Medium-bodied, dry and flavorful but very refined.
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Vinous
There's a sense of power within the 2022 Gewürztraminer. Whether it's the biodynamic practices, the schistous soils, the skin contact or the natural acidity of Otago – or all of the above – this is an off-dry wine whose residual sugar is cleansed as the wine journeys its path through your mouth. Readers can expect all the classic varietal aromatics, from lychee and rose to tropical fruit. In all, it's pure, carefully handled and if this variety is your thing, the 2022 would be one of the few New Zealand examples I'd wholeheartedly recommend.
Gewürztraminer, an expressive and aromatically distinctive white grape variety, is considered a noble variety in the Alsace region of France, and produces wonderful wines in the mountainous Alto Adige region of NE Italy. Generally this grape grows well in cooler regions and its natural intensity makes it a great ally for flavorful cuisine such as Indian, Middle Eastern or Moroccan. Somm Secret—Because of a charming perfume and tendency towards slight sweetness, Gewürztraminer makes for an excellent gateway wine for those who love sweet wines but want to venture into the realm of drier whites.
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.