New Zealand Wines

Spotlight on New Zealand: Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay 2007

July 17, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

This will be the last post in the New Zealand spotlight. And I feel it is suitable to end with a wine that represents how New Zealand is moving towards it own unique sense of terroir, marrying cool climate viticulture with respect for both old world restraint and new world pleasure. The best wines of New Zealand combine the reflective with the hedonistic so well that I am very excited for the Island’s future.

Methods

I wrote up Kumeu river’s entry level chardonnay earlier in this spotlight, which is made with purchased fruit. The Estate Chardonnay takes things to another level of depth and complexity. Grown on clay and sandstone soils, the vines are trellised in the ‘lyre’ system, which increases the grapes light exposure and helps to ensure greater phenolic ripeness.

The grapes are hand harvested, and once in the cellar they see 100% whole bunch pressing, full malo-lactic and barrel fermentation for 11 months.

Old World, New World

This is a very tasty wine and, despite not reaching the level of stunning complexity of the Pyramid Lion’s Tooth Chardonnay, it is also surprisingly complex and aromatically expressive. Minerals, stones, flowers and lemon make up the excellent bouquet, which would fool many to be Burgundy, though I think the fruit character is decidedly Kiwi. The oak is beautifully integrated and the palate is very bright and fresh with good length and balance. This is a wine with old world style and a new world sensibility and is outstanding chardonnay for the price.

Excellent and Highly Recommended Value
$40 at Kits Wine Cellar and Everything Wine

Filed Under: $40-$60, Chardonnay, Excellent, Highly Recommended Values, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines

Spotlight on New Zealand: Pyramid Valley Vineyards – Fanaticism and Perfection

July 9, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

New Zealand is a country that is still discovering its vinous identity. While much further along than British Columbia, Kiwi wineries are still experimenting and discovering what works best and where. There are many very good wines available beyond the traditional Sauvignon Blanc, including some stellar Pinot Noirs and Syrahs, and a few Chardonnays. However, there are still few wines that take it to the next level, those wines and wineries that define the greatness of a place.

California, for all its failings, has several of these sorts of wineries and is ahead of most everywhere else in the New World in this respect. While this profile has certainly introduced me to many very good wines that I did not realize were being made in New Zealand, it has also presented to me a country that has yet to discover its defining moment. Or at least so I thought until now.

An American in … New Zealand?

Two Americans, Mike and Claudia Weersing, founded Pyramid Valley in 1996, arriving in New Zealand after Mike studied winemaking in Burgundy and apprenticed with various stints at Hubert de Montille, Domaine de la Pousse d’Or, Nicholas Potel, Jean Michel-Deiss, Ernst Loosen, Randall Graham, Evesham Wood, and James Halliday (at Coldstream Hills). For those not in the know, these represent some of the top winemakers in Burgundy, Alsace, Germany, California, Oregon and Australia. Not only that, but most of these winemakers are proponents of biodynamics and minimalist winemaking.

While searching for the ideal vineyard site on which to found their winery, the Weersings initially started making wines by leasing vineyard land from some top growers across New Zealand. These wines represent their “growers” series of wines, which are interesting in themselves, though clearly represent a voyage of experimentation rather than the realization of a vision.

Mike Weersing is clearly a fanatical man. He spent years looking for his ideal vineyard site and ultimately found it in the middle of nowhere in central New Zealand (Canterburry) where not many (if any?) others are making wine. He has planted 95% of his vines with ungrafted rootstock and claims that the own rooted vines burrow deeper into the limestone soils than the grafted vines. His vineyards are on sites that have never seen the use of chemical pesticides or other human made intrusions on ‘nature’. The wines made from these vineyards are the “Home Vineyard” wines, as opposed to the “Growers Collection” of wines made from other vineyard sources.

Biodynamics, Again

These wines are also fully biodynamic, and the Weersings take this philosophy to its extremes, harvesting in relation to the phases of the moon and even attempting to isolate yeasts that live on the grapes from those that are indigenous to the cellar itself. In fact, Mike is going all out to try to get the saccharomyces yeast that live on the grapes to be the only yeast used in the fermentation. As such, sometimes the fermentations can take over a year to complete (which is why the 2008 Pinot’s were bottled after the 2009’s). Some claim this is lunacy and that yeasts that live in the cellar are not only impossible to exclude but are necessary to complete fermentation as the saccharomyces yeasts will always be insufficient to complete the process. Nonetheless, it is clear that Mike is taking fanatical attention to detail to another level.

This attention to detail reminds me of some conversations I was lucky to have with Allen Meadows where he opined that Biodynamicists produced better wine on average more because they were obsessed with details rather than anything relating to the lunar cycle. I think this must be true with the Pyramid wines as well, because it seems to be that this obsessed with detail and perfection is precisely the reason why the Weersings have avoided all the flaws commonly associated with both biodynamic and ‘natural’ wines, for surely the Home Vineyard wines are from both camps.

Hot Damn

The Home Vineyard wines from Pyramid Valley are unequivocally the best examples of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from New Zealand, and they compete with the absolute best examples from all over the New World. These are wines with unparallelled purity and finesse and with exceptional expression, balance and length.

I tasted both the Pyramid Valley Earth Smoke Pinot Noir 2009, which poured a beautiful cloudy light red (apparently the wine wouldn’t settle and the Weersings do not fine or filter), and the Pyramid Valley Lion’s Tooth Chardonnay 2009, which I had trouble distinguishing from a top notch Corton.

The Pinot had a Burgundian elegance on the nose with spice, light berry fruits, earth and savour. The 10% whole cluster fermentation clearly added spicy and earthy elements from the stems. This is a dense, rich Pinot Noir without heavyness or alcohol (it is 13.8%). Yet this is creamy, rich and very very smooth. Possessing one of the longest finishes I’ve experienced from a New World Pinot, the Earth Smoke completes with an earthy and mineral twist that makes this the most complete Pinot I have tasted in this New Zealand Spotlight.

Ditto for the Chardonnay, which is perhaps a more classic example of pure Burgundian cool-climate Chardonnay than are the Pinot Noirs (which truly are their own entity). The Lion’s Tooth offers mineral, stone and lemon on the nose, but it does so with exceptional expression and purity. In a blind, I would put money on experienced tasters picking this as a Burgundy. I found it similar to Mikulski’s Mersaults, which is an exceptional compliment since Mikulski is one of my favourite winemakers in Burgundy.

On the palate this was very elegant and long with exceptionally pure fruit. This is more balanced in oak, alcohol and acid than many more expensive Burgundy whites. Lemon, apricot, hazlenut and long minerality round out this exciting wine, which is amongst the very best New World Chardonnays I have tasted. This is even more elegant than many many white Burgundies.

Both wines are extremely impressive and both wines deserve:

Excellent+
$70 for the Earth Smoke Pinot Noir at Marquis Wine Cellar
$65 for the Lion’s Tooth Chardonnay at Marquis Wine Cellar

Filed Under: $60+, Chardonnay, Excellent, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Pinot Noir

Spotlight on New Zealand: Craggy Range Le Sol Syrah 2005

July 9, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

I’ve been pretty excited about the New Zealand Syrahs I’ve tasted in this spotlight. This wine, however, has proven to be somewhat of an enigma.

A New Zealand Giant

Craggy Range is one of the bigger names in Hawke’s Bay – 200,000 cases – which is not huge by standards outside of New Zealand, but within New Zealand it is quite considerable. Founded in the late 1980’s, Craggy Range has helped bring considerable success to the Hawke’s Bay region and has since expanded all over New Zealand, with wines made from grapes grown in Marlborough to Central Otago.

The Le Sol, however, is from Craggy Range’s “prestige” range of wines that supposedly represent the absolute best of what they do and what the Hawke’s Bay can produce.

Gimblett Gravels, the Hawke’s Bay sub-region from which this Syrah sprouts, is also considered by many to be the best region for Syrah in New Zealand – an ancient river bed with sedimentary soils. It is certainly the warmest, which helps make wines made from these soils some of the densest and richest in the country.

A Confused Wine or a Confused Tasting

The Le Sol comes in two parts – pop and pour and decanted. Surprisingly, the impact of decanting on this wine proved to be in reverse to what is traditional: it became more one dimensional and monolithic and lost the aromatic complexity and fresh palate I experienced upon initial opening.

On the initial open, this offered plenty of game and pepper, pouring a very youthful deep red. I thought these aromatics were so much more interesting than any of the big boy Syrahs from the U.S. and Australia.This changed, however, with the decant as the oak took over the fruit.

The same occurred on the palate. Initially a wine with juicy blackberry, plum, pepper, a hint of game and great freshness. This had mouthwatering acidity and exceptional length, finishing with herbs, garrigue and fine tannins. Strangely, with the decant this became all oak, which dried out the fruit on the finish. I cannot understand how such an expressive, fresh and complex wine could become so simplistic and monolithic with only a couple hours of air, but this is what happened.

As such, I find this a difficult wine to rate, and I’m not sure what to make of it, though at the price I can’t recommend it over the Sacred Hill or Man O War. Nonetheless, here it is:

Very Good+ to Excellent upon Pop and Pour
Fair with a Decant
$100 at Kits Wine Cellar

Filed Under: $60+, Fair, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Syrah, Very Good

Spotlight on New Zealand: Sacred Hill Deerstalkers Syrah 2007

June 25, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

With all the hype over Kiwi Pinot Noir, it has been a huge surprise to me that the most exciting wines I have tasted for this spotlight have been not of the famed Burgundian grape, but rather of the Rhone Valley sleeper: Syrah.

Syrah the Neglected

Syrah gets short shrift in the world of wine. One of the major noble grapes, it has yet suffered from consumer disinterest and abuse at the hands of huge Australian producers who labelled the grape as Shiraz and turned it into a commodity wine. The over extracted syrahs of central California have done little to help the grape’s cause, despite the fact that the region is very well suited to the grape and that the best producers are making fantastic wines.

Both of the two dominant new world styles that most new world consumers are exposed to have failed to express Syrah’s impressive ability to express terroir – an ability only matched by Pinot Noir. Whereas Pinot seems more able to express the unique divergences of terroir in the tiny region of Burgundy, Syrah seems to have the uncommon capacity to carry forth the stamp of almost any region in which it is planted, if only it is treated properly.

In the old world, focus on Chateaneuf du Papes has taken away from the great Syrah based wines of both the Languedoc and the Northern Rhone, particularly the top wines from St. Joseph and Cornas, which have a brooding depth coupled with a level of aromatic complexity not unlike Pinot Noir. A great Cote-Rotie is not unlike a great Burgundy, which has much to do with the two Cotes’ proximity.

Kiwi Potential

Very few wines in the New World have managed to capture the elegantly intense allure of the great wines of the Northern Rhone Valley and yet retained their own unique sense of place. The Syrahs I have tasted from New Zealand, however, have gone collectively further than any other new world region to honouring the true beauty of Syrah while maintaining a unique sense of terroir that is unmistakably New Zealand.

On Soils and Farming

Sacred Hill’s Deerstalker Syrah is planted in the Gimblett Gravels region of Hawke’s Bay, which is an old gravel river bed (alluvial soils of sand, silt, clay and gravel result from the shifting river bed – if you want to read more about the soils go here) with warm soil temperatures and low moisture. This allows for early ripening.

The grapes are hand picked, destemmed without crushing and fermented in small open vats and hand pressed. I’m not sure how the vines are cropped, but I am sure the yields are on the lower side – it is clear that all of the fruit used in this wine is at or very near ideal physiological and phenolic ripeness.

Syrah the Great

The wine itself smells purple with dark plum fruits and definite oak on the nose. The palate is completely unexpected: pepper pot, savory herbs, low toned fruit, game and meat. This is a rich wine but not at all over the top and the finish is of good length but not yet incredible. Of course, all the components smooth out nicely with a decant. Overall I find this to be surprisingly well balanced, and the alcohol integrates well with the tannin and fruit. There is no doubt that this is unique Syrah and another fascinating example of what New Zealand is doing with the grape. It may be that it is Syrah rather than Pinot that will ultimately make NZ’s greatest wines.

Excellent
$50 at Playhouse International Wine Fest

Filed Under: $40-$60, Excellent, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Syrah

Spotlight on New Zealand: Ata Rangi Pinot Noir 2008

June 22, 2011 By Shea 3 Comments

Jake at Cherries and Clay just posted on the possibilities of aging new world Pinot Noir by looking at a 2004 Rippon Pinot from Central Otago in New Zealand. In that piece he considered how red Burgundy tends to be built for age and most new world producers have instead built their wines for immediate drinking. Nonetheless, his 2004 Rippon seemed to straddle the line between the two worlds. This got me to thinking about what New Zealand Pinot Noir was all about and what it offered to drinkers beyond immediate pleasure.

Sex or History?

This is a difficult question given that most new world Pinot has built its market off its sexy immediacy. In fact, I have a hard time looking beyond the instant pleasure that such bottles bring. Nonetheless I do think the best examples from New Zealand are starting to move into slightly different territory.

Ata Rangi is one of New Zealand’s most iconic producers of Pinot Noir. It uses one of the oldest clones in New Zealand (the abel clone), which is a Dijon clone thought to have been smuggled into New Zealand from France (reportedly, a cutting from DRC itself) in the 1970’s. Amazingly, the current existence of these clones in NZ owes a debt to Malcom Abel, friend of Clive Paton founder of Ata Rangi , who was a former customs officer who was working for the government at the time the cuttings were confiscated and managed to see their potential and preserve them.

So Ata Rangi seems to have a significant link to Burgundy and certainly and important role in the NZ wine industry. They also manage their vineyards at a high standard of biodiversity, vineyards that have never seen the use of insecticide, and other important management practices you can read about here.

Fruit, Spice and Savor

As with most Pinot Noir it is easy to get lost in the hugely immediate up front fruit with this wine. It was not until this wine had decanted for several hours that I began to appreciate the savory nuances that gave this wine its character. This is something I have noticed in the best Pinots from New Zealand, and there is a particularly unique savoriness and spiciness to the Pinots from Martinborough that distinguish the best examples from other regions in the country.

This is a wine with a fruity palate and high acidity. The fruit is darker than expected, but it retains freshness and length on the finish. This is an undoubtedly new world Pinot Noir, but a delicious one. As a classic example of a traditional well made new world Pinot, this wine is texturally very pleasing and this may be its best quality, though the up front fresh fruit is a close second. However, as mentioned earlier with air the wine completely changes. It gets very nuanced, more savory and complex and much more aromatically expressive.

There does seem to be some heat on the finish that I would like to see disappear, and I suspect it will with time. That seems to be a common theme with many NZ pinot noirs. They have such great up front fruit, good acidity and balance until the finish on which you can detect the alcohol, even in many of the finest examples from top wineries.

I have no problem with New Zealand wineries embracing the new world style, though I still think they are going through some growing pains with the Pinot. There is a bit of an identity crisis – what distinguishes these wines from California, Oregon, or Australia? There are subtle nuanced distinctions in fruit and spice, alcohol and acid, but stylistically almost all of the Pinots from these regions go for the same thing: sexy fruit. I’m down with sexy. But I do see the potential for a far more intellectual journey. The terroir is there in the making. All that is needed is the vision (which wineries like Ata Rangi have been instrumental in developing), and a few hundred years.

Very Good+
$68 at Everything Wine

Filed Under: $60+, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Pinot Noir, Very Good

Spotlight on New Zealand: Kumeu River Village Chardonnay 2008

June 6, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

Chardonnay has crept up the New Zealand sales charts to enter the #2 position after Sauvignon Blanc. Despite this, most people haven’t tasted much Kiwi chard, let alone good Kiwi chard. I first tasted this at an industry tasting, then again at L’Abattoir and finally with my own bottle with food. Each time I tasted it I was impressed, despite this chard being made from fruit purchased from other Kumeu vineyards, a region northwest of Aukland with predominently clay soils over a sandstone base (the estate chards are at another level that I will hopefully discuss in a future post).

New Zealand’s Golden Coast

Kumeu uses only indigenous yeasts in their chardonnay, and generally combines a pure fruit driven approach with a deft use of Burgundian Cote d’Or techniques. There is serious history to this winery, which in a country like New Zealand, is one of the oldest, being founded in the 1940’s. It was not until the 1970’s that the winery planted international varieties like Chardonnay and until the 1980’s when it started bringing in techniques from Burgundy such as extended lees ageing.

Impressively Pure and Serious Chardonnay

This is a wine fermented both in French oak (1/3) and steel (2/3), which creates a compelling combination of pure chardonnay fruit and rich, voluptuous chardonnay as accented by oak. The nose offers pear lemon, a touch of oak and stoniness.

This wine is very impressive for this price. It is fairly round and rich but what keeps it tasty is that rather than becoming a goopy mess, it regains considerable focus on the finish and adds a nice line of minerality from the mid-palate onwards. It is not a profound wine, but it is a very good quality wine that will go with fish and seafood incredibly well and that would also make a great porch sipping wine if you feel like something with a hint of seriousness. I think this wine is of the same quality as good quality $35+ Chards from Macon.

Very Good and Highly Recommended Value
$26 at Kits Wine and Everything Wine

Filed Under: $20-$30, Chardonnay, Highly Recommended Values, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Very Good

Spotlight on New Zealand: And Co. Supernatural Sauvignon Blanc 2009

June 4, 2011 By Shea 3 Comments

I did not intend to cover any Sauvignon Blanc in this spotlight, primarily because while certainly distinctive, the grape has tended to overshadow much of the far more interesting wines being made in the country. However, I was intrigued enough by this Hawke’s Bay Savvy, and found it sufficiently unique to feature it in a post.

Naturally Supernatural

And Co. Ltd. is a new winery in Hawke’s Bay that reportedly was all about seeking the ultimate terroir for Sauv Blanc in New Zealand. Winemaker and owner Gabrielle Simmers settled on an 8.8 hectare estate, with north facing slopes on calcerous soils. These soils typically drain well and cause vines to produce more sap, which reduces sugar levels and increases acidity.

The winery reports that it farms organically and vinifies the wine ‘naturally’, but their website gives no information on the processes they use, and my research could only turn up that they use low levels of sulphur.

Texturally Suave New World Savvy

You don’t typically see a lot of Hawk’s Bay Sauvignon Blanc. Most SB comes from Marlborough and is very powerful, expressive and full of pine, grapefruit, citrus and explosive aromatics. This wine offers something different, focusing much more on texture and the unique fruit characteristics of its terroir than the NZ style.

The nose is expressive, with honey, pear and white nectarine. The palate is fairly different from your typical NZ sauvignon blanc, being a lot richer and rounder. This is texturally soft wine, and tasty to boot; however, I found it a bit hot on the finish which dissipated from its sense of freshness. Nonetheless, the fruit is big and expressive and offers a fairly unique and high quality take on NZ SB.

So, while I think that the marketers for this winery have oversold its uniqueness somewhat (though this is the winery’s first vintage and I don’t even know how old these vines are), this is a wine with promise. It is about richness, texture and intensity along with its slightly off-centre flavour profile. There is no mistaking this is new world Sauvignon Blanc, though, and it lacks the minerality and directness you get from the Loire Valley. However, it is a far better price than most wines from both Sancerre and Pouilly Fume and it mimics the “Dagueneau” style fairly well (though with less complexity and sophistication).

That said, I’m not sure why the marketers and several critics want to compare this to French Sauvignon Blanc. That would take away from what is interesting about this wine – it is clearly a new world SB with a strong sense of terroir and good expressivity. This is a good thing. Whether you like it or not? That’s a personal preference. Sauv Blanc haters will not be converted by this wine; however, those who enjoy Sauv Blanc’s flavour profile and are looking for something different should check it out.

Very Good
$29 at Marquis Wine Cellar

Filed Under: $20-$30, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Sauvignon Blanc, Very Good

Spotlight on New Zealand: Man O War Dreadnought Syrah 2008

May 23, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

Man O War arose from an atypical story. A family (whose names remain mysteriously absent on the winery website), intent on saving and preserving a portion of Wieke Island in New Zealand, purchased 4500 acres of land on the eastern end of the island. It was this parcel of land that was first discovered by both Polynesian explorers 700 years ago and, many years subsequently, by Captain James Cook on his famous voyage. The Royal Navy eventually used the indigenous trees to build masts for their ships, which ultimately gave the area its name.

Extreme Individuation Within Vastness

Waieke Island is off the coast of Aukland in northern New Zealand. Aukland is generally not known for producing high quality wines from local grapes, but wineries such as Man O War are prompting many to revisit the possibilities of the region.

The vineyards in this remarkable 150 acre slice of the 4500 acre property are comprised of over 90 individual hillside blocks. The soils are volcanic and clay loam, and the site placement, particularly for the reds, is fairly dramatic, with vines reaching down very steep clay hillsides that shelter the vines from the area’s strong winds.

Poetic Potency

Syrah, like Pinot Noir, has a precipitous ability to reflect the site and climate where it is grown. It is far more transparent than Cabernet Sauvignon, even though so much new world Syrah has been shamelessly manipulated into over extracted fruit bombs, often with astringent alcohol levels.

How pleasant it is, then, that this Syrah gains its pleasure and personality because it embraces its transparency rather than puffing itself up into a distorted steroidal form. It is also this careful and respectful approach to the grape that gives this wine a unique sense of place unlike anywhere else in the world.

The aromas begin spicy, richly adorned with meat, white pepper and cloves. This particularly unique dried clove character becomes part of the wine’s signature when you eventually take a sip. A delicious Syrah with a balance of acidity, density, aromatic complexity and length that comes from letting things be rather than extraction and power. Ironically, this wine is far more potent than any of those monster Syrah/Shiraz potions that unfortunately dominate critical interest in North America. But its potency is deeper and more understated – something you might drink when reading James Baldwin. Brooding but beautiful. Uniquely New Zealand and undeniably more exciting than any of the Pinot Noir’s I’ve tasted thus far.

Excellent
$50 at BCLDB (from the VIPWF)

Filed Under: $40-$60, Excellent, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Syrah

Spotlight on New Zealand: Sacred Hill Rifleman’s Chardonnay 2007

May 19, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

Hot or Not?

Hawke’s Bay is hot, for New Zealand – and that’s an important stipulation. On international standards Hawke’s Bay is at the climatic edge of ripening late season varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, Hawke’s Bay doesn’t get quite as warm a growing season as Bordeaux and as such the Bordeaux Blends that initially made Hawke’s Bay famous often have trouble ripening.

Just as in B.C., merlot plantings do far better here. But, it is mid-season ripening varieties such as Syrah and Chardonnay that seem to do best. And this wine is a perfect example of the quality that is possible with the right grape choice.

Soils in Hawke’s Bay are mostly alluvial, though there is a fair degree of variation within that category, ranging from silts to loam and gravel. This variation means that a vineyard manager must know his or her site very well in order to appreciate the unique ripening trajectory and flavour profiles created by the variations. This, luckily, means exciting diversity for consumers.

A Bit About the Winery

Sacred Hill was founded about 25 years ago by two brothers, David and Mark Mason. These two inherited the family farm from their father and travelled abroad studying in Bordeaux and Australia. As with many New Zealand wineries, Sacred Hill puts considerable effort into reducing their environmental footprint.

The grapes in this Chard were hand picked and whole cluster pressed, then fermented with indigenous yeasts and left to age for 12 months in oak barriques.

The Rifleman Vineyard is on a river plateau with volcanic soils overlaying limestone bedrock.

Voluptuous and Compelling Chardonnay

This is wonderfully cascading chardonnay with many layers of complexity. Pouring a pale straw in the glass, this tropically rich wine is yet lifted and enticing the more you sniff. Once proceeding to the first sip you will discover classically Burgundian acacia flowers, honey and hazlenut along with a seem of acid and mineral that seems to elude most New World Chardonnays – but this is not Cote d’Or. Rather, balance and freshness brings out fruit of a distinctly kiwi character – richer and more voluptuous than most Burgundy, even if also less sculpted and svelte. This by no means makes the wine any less delicious. This wine is an outstanding achievement and one that makes me pretty excited about the potential for New Zealand Chardonnay.

Excellent
$50 at Everything Wine

Filed Under: Chardonnay, Excellent, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines

Spotlight on New Zealand: Amisfield Pinot Noir 2007

May 15, 2011 By Shea Leave a Comment

The Central Otago has become the place to watch for exciting cool climate Pinot Noir in New Zealand. Several producers have begun producing softer, more elegant and more balanced Pinots. This, however, is a wine that bucks the trend in the Otago.

Atmosphere as Terroir

Since 1997 the number of wine producers has increased sixfold and plantings have more than quintupled. This rapid growth has coincided with an increase in both quality and diversity. Pictures of the Central Otago are some of the most stunning of any wine region in the entire world, which to me makes it all the more interesting that one of the peculiar characteristics of this ‘terroir’ is that it is one of the few wine regions in the world over which there is a considerable hole in the Ozone layer – showing that atmosphere is just as much part of the spirit of place as is the soil. This increased exposure to ozone radiation results in higher ripeness than one might expect. The cool nights of this most southerly wine region in the world keep acidities higher than further north in New Zealand.

Some Winery Background

Established in 1999, Amisfield is one of the early wineries in Central Otago. Situated on glacial soils, this vineyards are also all high altitude. All the grapes here are hand harvested, whole bunch pressed and partial whole bunch fermented. The addition of the stems to fermentation adds a spicyness and intensity that many particularly enjoy in their Pinot. Others are not quite so sure. Personally I enjoy the many approaches to Pinot but do appreciate the flavour density that whole cluster fermentation can bring. I appreciate that Amisfield has a serious commitment to biodiversity and creating a living vineyard, which you can read about on their website if you so desire. But let’s get to what we’re here for: the wine.

Bold but Lacking Balance

This is a bold and expressive Pinot that is quite rich. The heavily fruited wine is cherry, raspberry, cola, chocolate and some subtler oak flavours. With a broad palate that is very flavourful and moderately complex, I think this will likely improve a little with some age, but is delicious now. This is a fruit driven Pinot, however, and it does not have the layering of the absolutely best Pinots in the world, perhaps because the alcohol is at 14%. The alcohol remains a touch out of balance – perhaps an effect of the vintage? Nonetheless, an good example of the Central Otago’s style even if a touch alcoholic.

Very Good+
$55 at Everything Wine, also available at Kits Wine

Filed Under: $40-$60, New Zealand, New Zealand Wines, Pinot Noir, Very Good