Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very impressive and glossy nose with plenty of upbeat raspberry, red cherry and pomegranate, youthful fruit fragrance and a striking floral edge. The palate is silky, balanced and effortlessly drinkable with beautifully supple tannins and discreet acidity that lights the finish brightly - great wine, very attractive.
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Wine Spectator
Terrific aromas of mahogany and cypress provide a good base note to the fresh and lively raspberry and pomegranate fruit flavors. The finish grows increasingly complex. Drink now through 2025.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to med ruby-purple in color, the 2012 Pinot Noir offers a beautiful nose of bright red cherries, crushed raspberries and lavender with hints of black pepper, fennel seed and damp earth. Light to medium-bodied with a good core of red berry and cherry in the mouth complimented by herbal accents and silky tannins, it finishes long with plenty of layers.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
A beautiful Pinot Noir, the 2012 Two Paddocks Estate Pinot Noir shows both red and black fruits as well as a wild twist of savor. This is pure varietal, great with grilled lamb. Medium red brick color; black leaf, tea leaves and dried fruit in the nose, wild red fruit, some tar and savory notes, fine depth; medium to long finish. (Tasted: July 27, 2015, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Compared to Two Paddocks’ 2013 The Last Chance bottling, this is lacier in texture— delicate and enchanting for its weightlessness. It still boasts many of the same flavors—tart cherries and herbal, tea-like notes, with a silky finish.
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.