Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
With a compelling, complex and fresh nose of blue fruits and ripe cherries, this has plenty of bracken and sous bois on the make. It's leafy too and the oak is gently played. The palate has impressive tannin articulation while the sturdy structure is the key, supporting ripe, dark fruit flavors in the plum to cherry spectrum. This holds long and is nicely done.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale ruby colored with a touch of purple, the 2012 Leah Pinot Noir offers a slightly reduced nose of tires and tar over a good core of black cherries, pepper and Mediterranean herbs. Medium-bodied, it's quite tight-knit and reticent in the mouth with earth and herbal layers fleshing out the chewy tannins, crisp acid and long finish. Rating: 90+
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.