Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Tinker's Field Mature Vine Pinot Noir is piercingly concentrated on the palate, and it has energy, poise and icy balance. The season was cold and crystalline, with snow, ice and wind. Apparently, this wine has taken forever to come out of its shell, but "shell" I would protest. It is sapid, penetrating and so fresh. The season may have brought it challenges, but I see none of those here in the glass. To me, this perfectly captures the ability of the wines grown on this estate to resist the decay of time so completely. It's just not having a bar of it. I accept that this wine took some time from harvest to open up, perhaps. But good things come to those who wait—very good things.
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.