Winemaker Notes
Spicy red fruit, dried herb and wildflower aromatics leading to a feminine, lithe and textural driven wine. This wine shows great tension, verve, density and persistence.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Two Paddocks' 2017 The Fusilier Pinot Noir comes from the estate's warmest vineyard, next to Felton Road in the Bannockburn subregion. It's the most structured and tannic of the offerings, with dark fruit, earthy nuances, a stolid, muscular feel in the mouth and firm (but ripe) tannins on the finish. Hints of hickory smoke join stemmy notes on the nose, while plummy fruit joins with hints of dark chocolate on the palate and lingers on the finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
This vintage of proprietor Sam Neill’s premium organically farmed Pinot is, for the moment, young and reductive, a sturdier wine that we’ve seen, but one that should reward time in the cellar. Rather than the broody, oniony aromas associated with reduction, this version emphasizes the wine’s vegetal and herbal characters: green bell pepper in a sea of freshly plucked, earthy herbs, brambly berries and wildflowers. Streaks of minerals appear as the wine opens. Taut, spicy, chalky tannins grip the tongue, but a river of juicy fruit washes it away, ready for the next sip.
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.