Winemaker Notes
Two Paddocks flagship Pinot Noir - an estate grown, barrel selection from the three small Neill family vineyards in Central Otago. These vineyards are high-density planted in a range of clonal material and intensively "man-handled" with most vineyard practices carried out by hand. As in the vineyard, the wine is hand crafted using traditional methods including a 25% whole bunch wild fermentation and hand plunging. It is then matured in French barriques for 11 months, using a mix of older and new (25%) barrels.
In 2011, this wine was an assemblage from our Gibbston First Paddock and the Earnscleugh Last Chance and Red Bank vineyards. Again, each block and clone was picked and fermented separately, with the final blending taking place prior to bottling.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Let's just say that there are some serious Pinot Noirs coming out of Central Otago. Proprietor Sam Neill is making a statement with his family's wines. Medium garnet color; wild, red fruit aroma, with plenty of living nuances, active and pure, fine depth; medium bodied, zesty on the palate, well managed tannins keep everything in a nice place; dry, fine acidity, well balanced; wild, dried sage, red fruit flavors, a bite of mineral and chalk, dead leaves too; medium finish, pert aftertaste. (Tasted: December 17, 2015, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine & Spirits
Whether you think of this as silk or velvet, it’s a fine textural pleasure, the main flavors for now reliant on oak. Cellar it and the hints of flowers may develop into something more fragrant, or enjoy it now with rack of lamb.
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.