Pinot Noir

If dark and broody with loads of black cherry and dried herb aromas sounds like a wine you'd love to drink, buy this beautiful Pinot Noir from the Inlet Vineyard in Bannockburn, Central Otago. 

This 5.25 hectare site is situated 225 to 245 metres above sea level where the grapes' growing season is extended thanks to the elevation, which provides cool nights as a foil to the hot days here. 

Flavours of structured dark fruit combine with firm tannins and a long life ahead.

The wine was aged in French oak and bottled unfined.

Calvert Vineyard is a special piece of land on Felton Road in Central Otago and it is home to several great Pinot Noirs, including this fragrant, elegant and muscular wine. Produced for Owen Calvert, this wine is made by Sarah Burton who brings out Pinot's refreshing qualities of intense red florals, cherries and a savoury twist on the finish.  

There are three single vineyard Pinot Noirs in the Mount Edward stable, including this outstanding full bodied example which is made from grapes grown on the upper terraces of the Pisa sub region. These grapes are always the first to be harvested and Pisa Terrace Pinot Noir is a wine of perfume and aromatics, a lifted wine, light in feel and weight, elegant with a purity of fruit.

Olearia Pinot Noir is a big wine made on a small scale from Prophet's Rock range of Pinot Noirs and is made from the steepest part of the Rocky Point Vineyard in Bendigo where schist soils dominate the ground and an earthy, dark, weighty wine is the result. Winemaker Paul Pujol wanted to explore this small area of the vineyard to see what style of wine would result from this small parcel of land. 

All grapes in this wine were hand picked, fermented with wild yeasts and the finished wine was aged for 17 months in French oak barrels and bottled unfiltered. Just 321 cases made.

We have five bottles and suggest this is an excellent wine for adding to your cellar or drink now in large glasses, decanted. 

The name comes from the Olearia Lineata, a small dense tree with elegant fine branches and tiny drought? resistant leaves that once carpeted the valley floors of Central Otago. There are large numbers of these officially at risk trees in and around Bendigo, which is home to Prophet's Rock vineyards. 

Prophet Rock?s flagship Pinot Noir ? Sourced from their ?Home Vineyard? on a steep, elevated terrace in the Bendigo sub-region of Central Otago. Here, altitude, climate, soils and meticulous viticulture combine to produce Pinot Noir with stature and concentration. Careful cellaring will reward collectors over the next 10+ years.

This delicate, fine-boned wine comes from vineyards below Volnay and Puligny classed as Bourgogne and aged between 45 and 55 years of age. 100% destemmed. A third was vinified and matured in tank to preserve the bright fruit. Aromatic, light in body and very pretty.

Winemaker Sam Weaver describes The Abyss Pinot Noir as an iron fist in a velvet glove. It's made with grapes grown on a hillside vineyard, which backs onto a precipitous cliff, hence the name, The Abyss. Vines were planted here in 2000 at a high density of approximately 5000 vines to the hectare, which is unusual for New Zealand. All of these grapes are 100% certified organic with BioGro New Zealand and also grown biodynamically. A high proportion of whole berries were included in the ferment with indigenous yeasts and the wine was aged in French oak barrels for 18 months with a modest 10% new oak.

Churton Estate founder and winemaker Sam Weaver cut his teeth on the classic wines of the world while working in fine wine retail in the United Kingdom. He and his wife Mandy Weaver then moved to New Zealand and set about creating one of this country's most focussed small wineries; a brand that does live up to the dream of creating 100% estate grown grapes, 100% certified organic production and 100% bottled on site, nearly all of the wines without fining or filtration. All the grapes are hand picked and natural yeasts ferment the vast majority of wines they make. These qualitative decisions impact every step of their winemaking in a positive fashion, providing exceptional quality grapes which in turn express themselves in outstanding wines.

Luscious, deep-fruit aromas of red cherries and raspberries rise from the glass. The palate is crisply layered and mouth filling with fine tannins. Ripe red fruit obtains complexity from hints of spicy characters, tea leaf and earth. The texture has sophistication and elegance, being sumptuous and refreshing at the same time.

This wine has aromas of cassis, ripe dark cherries, toasted spices, and savoury notes. The mid-palate shows fruit sweetness, while generous but fine-grained tannins contribute to a lingering elegant finish.

Vineyard 

Nautilus Clay Hills Vineyard is located on the ridge that divides the Brancott and Omaka Valleys within the Southern Valleys sub-region of Marlborough. The vineyard is divided into 6 discrete blocks with different aspects and slopes and an elevation between 100 and 130 m. Normally picked midway through the Pinot Noir harvest window this vineyard has rapidly become the cornerstone block for Nautilus Pinot Noir where the clay-based soils contribute a silken texture and fine-grained tannins. The vines are trained to a VSP trellis system with a mixture of cane and spur pruning, with a target yield of 1.5 - 2.0 kg per vine.

Matahiwi's top and most full bodied Pinot Noir from its home block vineyard on a raised gravel ridge east of Masterton. This wine is dark and has great depth and structure thanks to being made from 50% of the impressive Abel clone; the greatest Pinot Noir variant in New Zealand and all given whole cluster fermentation in this wine to add structure, accentuate dark fruit flavours and a complex note of spice. Unfined. Vegan.

The Churton vineyard is east-nor-east orientation, 200 metres above sea level and spanning a ridge line between Marlborough’s Omaka and Waihopai Valleys.

It captures the cool morning and warm daytime sunshine ideal for long, slow ripening. Soils here are older and denser than neighbouring valley floor. Loess above a clay subsoil which, at deep levels, has good water holding capacity. Planting density 4,630 vines per ha. The Clod Block is one of 17 individual vineyard blocks planted to the hillside contours by Sam and Mandy Weaver. Vine age approx. 12 years. Striking for its purity and immediacy, this expresssion of Churton is sappy and structured, with layers that build seamlessly into a velvety richness.

Biodynamic farming regime and BioGro certified.

Located on the north facing slopes of the Brancott Valley, Clayvin Vineyard takes its unique name from the clay based soil profile that lies beneath the vineyard. The complex clay profile varies across the vineyard, allowing a number of different varieties to be grown, including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The clay soil gives our Clayvin Pinot Noirs richness and generosity and an immediately appealing soft texture.

High density planting allows for very low yields per vine. Low yielding vines tend to produce wines of great concentration and richness.

This vineyard consistently produces grapes of outstanding quality.

This single-malt scotch whisky comes courtesy of the Tamnavulin distillery in Speyside. It?s one of a series of expressions matured in red wine casks. This particular whisky has been finished in a cask that once held German pinot noir. 

40% ABV

A complex Martinborough Pinot Noir made by wine maker Paul Mason that offers aromas of soft red and dark cherry and plum, complemented by hints of exotic spice and earthiness. On the palate, the wine is tight and structured, laced with spicy, savoury notes and a lingering, herbal acidity.

Dry, dark and full bodied fleshy black plum flavours with a beautiful silky textured mouthfeel. This single vineyard Pinot Noir is made from  hand picked grapes grown on the Wrekin Vineyard in the Southern Valleys, Marlborough. Most of the grapes were destemmed with a small portion of 15% whole bunches to add structure and weight to the wine, which was fermented warm (up to 31 degrees Celcius) then transferred to French oak, 27% new for 10 months of ageing. This wine has hints of smoky flavour with a rich, dense earthy aroma leading into beautiful dark fruit flavours of plums and black cherries.

Whitehaven Wines began life in 1994 as a romantic business for a couple of corporate escapees, Sue and Greg White, who had given up life in the rat race of Auckland for another kind of life aboard their yacht. When sailing around the country, they took shelter in the Marlborough Sounds from Pacific storms and fell in love with the region. An easy thing to do when harbouring in the spectacularly pristine waters of the Sounds. They decided to settle there on terra firma once more and try their hands at wine production, hiring a winemaker and beginning a business which has now been around for 26 years. Greg has sadly passed away now, leaving a legacy as well as his wife and daughter, Sam, to run the winery. Their winemaker is Peter Jackson.