Best ever is always a big claim to fame but it's definitely on point for the newly released 2019 Huntress Pinot Noir, in store now and available online.

Buy 2019 Huntress Pinot Noir here

Earlier harvests and a change in vineyard are on the horizon for Huntress Pinot Noir in the future but the new vintage of this wine sets a new high bar, as well as continuing the consistent style of the previous wines that Rickards has made under her own brand, Huntress.

The Huntress Pinot Noir is made with grapes grown on the On Giant’s Shoulders Vineyard in Martinborough village. This site is planted in a mix of four different clonal variations of Pinot Noir, namely, 10/5, Abel, 828 and clone 5. The first vintage of the wine was made at Julicher (now Butterworth Estate on Te Muna Road, Martinborough). Since 2018 it has been made at Urlar in Gladstone. Volumes are small and consistently three barrels each year have been made. 

The not so consistent factor is harvest dates in the Wairarapa region. Grapes used to be typically picked in about the third week of March each year, but this has now moved to the beginning of March, typically. It's a big shift over the past couple of decades and Rickards is far from alone in noticing enormous changes in the climate within this wine region. 

How that impacts on the style of the wines and even the most suitable grapes to plant in this region are questions that remain unanswered, for now. The good news is that many warmer vintages are providing conditions for high quality wines. The third vintage of Huntress Pinot Noir is a wine that illustrates this. It is the new 2019 and, as Rickards showed at a tasting with friends last week, it is a superlative, ripe, elegant and silky Pinot Noir with oomph and power that make it a delicious drink on its own and even better with savoury, earth tasting flavours in food. 

Wine of the week

18.5/20

2019 Huntress Pinot Noir RRP $45.99

Delicate and silky with a long finish, following bold dark fruit aromas of plums and red cherries supported by firm structure which comes in part from 40% of the wine made using whole bunches of Pinot Noir. This is a beautiful new expression of Pinot Noir from one of New Zealand's smallest wine regions, the Wairarapa. 

Buy 2019 Huntress Pinot Noir here