Ward Valley Mt Victoria Block Marlborough Pinot Noir 2018 $29 I loved the 2016 version of the Mt Victoria Block pinot noir, but this 2018 is a softer, sexier, more sweetly-fruited beast altogether. Grown in the tiny, south-Marlborough sub-region of Ward, famous for its deep clay soils. It’s the clay that injects floral intensity to … Read More
Pinot Noir
Zephyr Wines MKI Marlborough Rosé 2019
Zephyr Wines MKI Marlborough Rosé 2019 $25 Crafted from pinot noir fruit sourced from the Glover family’s Brink Block vineyard, this is an intensely floral rosé packed with redcurrant and raspberry characters, edged with white pepper and spice. There’s a twang of tropical flavour and a long, dry, crunchy-fresh finish. The acidity is taut, cranberry-like … Read More
Zephyr Marlborough Pinot Noir 2018
Zephyr Marlborough Pinot Noir 2018 $29.99 Hands up if fresh strawberries, fresh, squinty rhubarb and fresh cherries are something you’d like all up in your cakehole? Well fret not, the pinot noir equivalent of special agent John Wick unleashing a hail of flavoursome weaponry upon thee. Ben Glover is the winemaker at the helm of … Read More
Bob short for kate Organic Marlborough Pinot Noir 2019
Bob short for Kate Organic Marlborough Pinot Noir 2019 $tbc So your plan’s not cunning enough to pin a tail on and call it a weasel? Fret not. It’ll never measure up to Kate’s scheme of disguising herself as a boy and calling herself ‘Bob’ to become Lord Blackadder’s manservant and keep a roof over … Read More
Mr Glover Central Otago Pinot Noir 2018
Mr Glover Central Otago Pinot Noir 2018 $42 I’ve said it before, but in case you missed the memo, for professional pinot people, Ben Glover is about as top-of-the-tree as it gets in this country. With ‘chief winemaker’ titles from Wither Hills, Mud House and Zephyr, and a past Chair of Pinot Noir New Zealand, … Read More
Norman Hardie Unfiltered VQA Prince Edward County Pinot Noir 2016
Norman Hardie Unfiltered VQA Prince Edward County Pinot Noir 2016 ($60) Canadian pinot noir isn’t something we see in New Zealand very often (much like appropriate footwear and eye protection when mowing the lawns, the correct use of hair straighteners or affordable house painters). So I get a tad excited whenever one lands on my … Read More
Doctors Flat Central Otago Pinot Noir 2016
Doctors Flat Central Otago Pinot Noir 2016 $49.50 The tiny, 3ha, organically-farmed Doctor’s Flat site in Bannockburn is composed of deep gravels laid down by receding glaciers 480,000 years ago. Shepherded into the bottle by winemaker/owner Steve Davies since the mid-2000s, in 2016, 27% of the hand-harvested fruit was popped into the tank as intact … Read More
Black Estate Netherwood North Canterbury Pinot Noir 2017
Black Estate Netherwood North Canterbury Pinot Noir 2017 $75 When I say this pinot noir brings the funk, I don’t mean the kind of funk occurring in the ‘used mats’ bin down the local Bikram studio, I mean freshly-turned-earth funky, old, seasoned leather funky, wild cherries and spiced rhubarb funky. Unfined and unfiltered, it’s cloudiness … Read More
Putangi Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019
Putangi Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019 $31 This new range of wines created by Greg Hay and his team at Wet Jacket Wines, is named after the trusty rowboat used by pioneer conservationist, Richard Henry, who in 1894 began ferrying as many of our endangered birds as he could find, from parts of Dusky Sound, … Read More
Neck of the Woods Central Otago Pinot Noir 2018
Neck of the Woods Central Otago Pinot Noir 2018 $38 Neck of the Woods is the brainchild of AJ Johnson, a long-time television industry professional who got the wine bug bad and set about securing sites that’d deliver pinot noir that wasn’t “mass-produced sh*t”. This vintage hails from two Bendigo vineyards, one on a flat … Read More