Winemaker Notes
Bright bramble, red currant, violet and wild herb aromatics leads to a spicy, warmly textured mouthfeel, showing great elegance and depth. Great complexity and drive.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of black cherries, kola nuts and lavender followed by dried herbs and orange zest with underlying potting soil notes. Mushrooms. Some gun metal. Medium-bodied, firm tannins and vivid acidity. Beautifully polished and delightful wine with great balance. From organically grown grapes. Give it time to open. Better after 2025.
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Jasper Morris
The gutsy, strong note of reduction may not be for everyone I suspect but I find it captivating. Masses of fruit intensity, this is a big, muscular wine with plenty of chewy but ripe tannins. There is real length of flavour so just needs time.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 The Fusilier Pinot Noir is red fruited in the extreme. On the nose, this is all red fruits and spice (pink peppercorn, etc.), but in the mouth, it is open weave (not loose) and attractive. This is where the red fruits show in a plush/pillowy way. This will be the wine that most go to for its "palate built for pleasure" styling. A lovely expression.
Rating: 93+
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.