Central Otago travel guide

The soaring mountains, dry highlands and glacial-blue braided rivers of New Zealand’s Central Otago region have long made it a favourite destination for adventure-seekers and filmmakers (most notably the lord of the rings himself, Sir Peter Jackson).

But the region’s celebrated wines have become a draw in their own right. Wine arrived here during the 19th-century gold rush, French immigrant Jean Désiré Féraud planting the first vines in 1864, but it wasn’t until the late 20th century that a commercial wine industry appeared in Gibbston Valley.

Today, the Central Otago wine region encompasses six sub-regions, all within 50km of the old gold-mining town of Cromwell. Pinot Noir dominates, but Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer are well represented, too.

A world-class hospitality industry has sprung up to cater to Otago’s visitors. Queenstown is the central hub of activity, with Wānaka (at the southern tip of the eponymous lake) providing a gentler alternative, but Cromwell is probably the best place to base yourself if you’re there for the wine.

Accommodation ranges from budget hostels to luxury lodges, while excellent restaurants serve innovative menus based on local produce.

Activities on offer include everything from skydives to wine tours, and Ngāi Tahu, the South Island’s principal Māori iwi, or tribe, is involved in much of the region’s tourism, giving visitors the chance to learn about indigenous history and culture along the way.

How to get there

The nearest major international airport is in Christchurch (a five-hour drive from Cromwell), but you can fly direct to Queenstown airport (40 minutes from Cromwell) from New Zealand’s three largest cities and Australia’s main east coast centres.

Around the vineyards

Greg Hay founded Wet Jacket Wines in 2015, having already established Chard Farm (1987) and Peregrine Wines (1998). ‘None of us knew what we were doing when we started,’ he says. ‘We all encouraged each other, swapping ideas about what worked. It’s that spirit that makes this region so special.

Greg founded Wet Jacket as a ‘bit of fun’ after the success of his two larger ventures. The original cellar door was a wool shed near Arrowtown (complete with a sheep-shearing room), but they’ve since opened one on the lakeside in Queenstown. Half of the revenue from wine tastings funds conservation projects, which Greg oversees himself.

Mountains and lakes

Rippon Vineyard is the northernmost of the region, overlooking lake Wānaka with a view of the glacier-topped peaks of Mt Aspiring national park (see map).

‘The mountains are key,’ says Hazel Nasta, the estate’s cellar door manager. ‘They’re a wall to weather from the west, giving us a dry, stable, continental climate with hot days and cold nights.

'Central Otago sits on free-draining schists, so the vines put all their energy into the fruit, producing intense, vibrant grapes.

'There’s no appellation control in New Zealand,’ Hazel continues. ‘So winemakers can experiment more freely. Our older vines are starting to express the terroir very clearly, so our Sauvignon Blanc is flintier than the lemongrass and tropical flavours of Marlborough.'

Just north of Cromwell, on a hill overlooking lake Dunstan, is Domaine Thomson Wines , the winery buildings clad and roofed with rustic, acid-washed, corrugated galvanised steel, to echo the region’s gold rush past.

Owners David and PM Hall-Jones also have vineyards in Burgundy, the spiritual home of Pinot Noir. ‘It’s a wonderful contrast,’ says PM. ‘We have a millennium of tradition in France, but decades of innovation in Otago, which is changing the way we think of that grape.’

Going for gold

Situated near the old gold sluicings in Bannockburn, Felton Road is probably the region’s most internationally renowned winery, having won awards from around the globe.

‘We were part of that second generation of Otago winemakers,’ says Nigel Greening, who took over the estate in 2000. ‘We’re biodynamic, which is a fancy way of saying we use the ecosystem, such as falcons chasing birds from the vines. But we do play music to the wines in the cellars!’

Felton Road’s cellar door is open on weekdays. You need to make an appointment, but it’s worth it for a place that’s considered one of New Zealand’s top producers, as the visit includes a detailed tour of the vines and winery, as well as samples of their wines.

The spectacular cellar door at nearby Te Kano (‘the seed’ in Māori) thrusts over the valley with views up Kawarau gorge. You can pick up snacks from the deli to accompany wines on the terrace or pack them up as a picnic to enjoy on the estate (60% of which is reserved for native vegetation).

Your Central Otago address book

Accommodation

Gibbston Valley Lodge

Gibbston Valley was the first commercial winery in the region, and its lodge and spa are gorgeous. Rooms from NZ$674, including spa and restaurant.

Lime Tree Lodge

This luxury boutique lodge, with beautiful gardens and a pool, sits just outside Wānaka. Rooms from NZ$395.

Marsden Lake Resort

In Cromwell, the Marsden Lake Resort has self-contained villas opposite the entrance to Domaine Thomson. Studios from NZ$291.

Restaurants

Cardrona Hotel

Don’t miss this hotel located on the pass between Wānaka and Queenstown, to enjoy a perfect lamb shoulder in one of New Zealand’s true institutions.

Kika

In Wānaka, Kika blends excellent fine dining with modern sharing plates – its crayfish mole and roasted brassicas are remarkable.

Mora

Just outside Arrowtown, the winery at Mora has a fabulous terrace and excellent, colourful food. Great for lunch.

Activities

Hike to a glacier

The walk from Raspberry Flat to Rob Roy glacier in Mt Aspiring national park is one of the best short walks in the world. You can do it yourself, or alternatively Eco Wānaka provides transport, lunch and an excellent guided hike for NZ$420 per adult.

Lakes District Museum & Gallery

Located in Arrowtown and filled with dioramas and artefacts, the museum offers a fantastic insight into the region’s history, with a particular focus on European and Chinese gold miners (NZ$14).

Scenic flight & cruise

Southern Alps Air offers a spectacular four-hour day tour from Wānaka that crosses the Southern Alps for a scenic cruise along the 16-kilometre length of Milford Sound (pictured, p88; NZ$749 per adult). It’s a remarkable way to get a sense of the geography that influences Otago’s wines.

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If Sauvignon Blanc built New Zealand’s reputation, Pinot Noir is where it intends to cement its fine wine credentials. That much was clear at the industry’s flagship event, Pinot Noir New Zealand 2025 (PN25), held in Christchurch earlier this year – the first since 2017 after a pandemic-related hiatus.

Over three days, producers presented their wares for debate, tasting and scrutiny by local and international critics and trade. The verdict? The wines are more exciting than ever, but the category faces a defining moment: push harder for global recognition or risk fading into the background of the fine wine conversation.

Many international attendees were struck by the stylistic shift. The glossy, oak-sweetened Pinots of the early days are largely gone, replaced by wines of greater finesse, freshness and site transparency.

‘There’s a real sense of confidence now,’ noted consultant and DWWA judge Madeleine Stenwreth MW. ‘Producers don’t feel the need to push so hard to prove themselves. They are showing much more place, much more vineyard.’

‘The interplay of site and clone is clearer, inspiring a wave of single-vineyard wines’

Emma Jenkins MW

Winds of change

New Zealand’s hallmark has long been vibrant fruit purity and consistency, with Pinots typically marrying aromatic, juicy red and black fruits with savoury depth and natural freshness. While wine drinkers have enjoyed that consistency, some critics wonder whether it has limited the country’s evolution.

Burgundy expert and author Jasper Morris MW, visiting in late 2024, observed: ‘Not a lot has really changed between my various visits. Certainly people are more competent and the understanding of locations is better, but have there really been that many new people? You can’t keep saying the same story, as the unfortunate reality is this will not capture the world’s interest.’

With more than 5,600ha under vine, Pinot Noir is New Zealand’s second most planted grape, the key red variety from Wairarapa south. Central Otago, despite having just 4.9% of the nation’s vineyards, produces nearly 30% of its Pinot Noir.

Few countries boast such a range of cool-climate terroirs and when tasted side-by-side, the regional and sub-regional differences are increasingly distinct. The challenge – and opportunity – is how to communicate this diversity in markets where Burgundy, Oregon and increasingly Germany dominate the conversation. Internationally, New Zealand is no longer a newcomer.

Consumers may recognise established names but often fail to explore beyond them. While exports have been falling, after reaching a peak in 2018, and global market visibility remains a challenge, those closer to home know that styles have indeed broadened. Winemakers are embracing differences rather than smoothing them away.

The past decade has brought a burst of natural and ‘nouveau’ wines, small-batch experiments and even the occasional blend. A more nuanced, site-responsive approach has emerged, prioritising terroir over winemaking showmanship. As vines have matured, the interplay of site and clone is clearer, inspiring a wave of single-vineyard wines.

Whether these are genuinely superior or simply distinct is still open to debate, but this shift from technical ambition to authentic site expression marks an evolution.

‘New Zealand Pinot now seems to be more nuanced, freer of the technical obsession that once led many wines into the same flavour space,’ said UK critic Jamie Goode at PN25.

Generational change is also reshaping the landscape. Young winemakers and new entrants, often running side hustles or small projects, are pushing boundaries with an increasing focus on organic and biodynamic farming and low intervention styles.

Many rely on fruit from premium growers or shared production spaces, reflecting both the high capital costs and collaborative spirit of the new wave.

Decanter New Zealand Pinot Noir vintage rating

New Zealand’s geography can make vintage generalisations difficult. Some vintages – 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024 – have had more uniform conditions, but it always pays to check by individual region.

2024: *****

Lower yields this year but exceptional quality; warm, dry conditions and cool nights. Balanced, ageworthy wines.

2023: ****

Cyclone Gabrielle challenged the northeastern coast. Tricky year for many, though some good wines, if unlikely to be long-cellaring. Much more solid across the South Island. Decent yields.

2022: ***

Solid yields. For most, a very humid February was aided by a drier autumn: look for fastidious producers. An excellent year for Central Otago.

2021: *****

Early, very dry season. Low yields but very good quality across both islands.

2020: *****

The ‘lockdown’ vintage; fortunately, Mother Nature was smiling. Excellent quality, low yields.

New Zealand’s defining wine?

Yet despite the quality and diversity, Pinot Noir hasn’t achieved the global breakthrough enjoyed by Sauvignon Blanc. Plantings have fallen by almost 200ha in the past decade, exports and overall domestic wine consumption are both falling, and Pinot Gris now outsells Pinot Noir overseas.

Rising production costs add further challenges. Visibility is a perennial hurdle and limited quantities of the best wines make them difficult to f ind in key markets such as the US and UK.

As PN25 keynote speaker Eric Asimov cautioned: ‘Potential and possibility don’t create awareness. You need people on the ground – importers, distributors – championing these wines.’

Still, there’s energy in the air and a sense of momentum. Both 2024 and 2025 delivered high-quality vintages across the regions, and most producers are driven by site and purpose rather than scale. Their wines increasingly reflect that authenticity.

At 89, Central Otago pioneer Alan Brady (who first planted grapes in Gibbston valley in 1981 and has just built his third winery, Wild Irishman), remains upbeat.

‘It’s Pinot Noir that’s shown us where to go,’ he says. ‘If we’re wise, we won’t let the marketplace dictate style but continue to develop our empathy and understanding of our vineyards.’

That balance of humility and dedication is serving New Zealand well. Great Pinot Noir takes time, and within little more than a generation, the country has established an impressive degree of quality with the promise of more to come.

For drinkers around the world, the message is simple: New Zealand Pinot Noir has never been more compelling – it’s nuanced, diverse, deeply rooted in place and increasingly ageworthy. If producers maintain their quality focus, tell their stories with conviction and build allies in key markets, Pinot Noir could yet become New Zealand’s defining wine.

Around New Zealand’s Pinot Noir regions

Wairarapa

Small but significant region, home to pioneering, world-class wineries. Three sub-regions: Martinborough, Gladstone and Masterton. Pinot accounts for roughly half of plantings (slightly more in Martinborough). Devigorating wind and deep gravelly soils produce low yields and thicker skins; wines are aromatic and structured, with savoury complexity. Key area for Abel, the ‘gumboot clone’ said to have been propagated from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s La Tâche vineyard.

Marlborough

The shift from stony valley floor sites to the rolling, clay-based hillsides of the Southern Valleys, alongside clonal refinement, has led to major quality gains. Exciting wines are emerging from the cooler, drier, more exposed Awatere. While many archetypal wines remain, there’s also good value via the larger producers. Wines are typically fragrant, red-fruited and midweight with fine tannins. Key area for sparkling and rosé.

Nelson

Enjoys similar sunshine hours to Marlborough but with more sheltering hills, producing perfumed, expressively fruity wines. The Moutere’s clay soils lend silky tannins and supple texture.

North Canterbury

Early vineyards were planted near South Island’s biggest city Christchurch, but recent decades have seen a northward shift to the drier, more sheltered rolling hills of Waipara and the inland limestone soils of Waikari. Wines are perfumed and spicy with red/black fruits, and supple, textural structure.

Central Otago

Pinot Noir is the region’s flagship variety, just exceeding 80% of plantings. Six distinct sub-regions – Alexandra, Bannockburn, Bendigo, Gibbston, Lowburn/Pisa and Wanaka – sit on quartz/schist/granite and glacial soils. Aromatic, supple wines with vivid red or black fruits, spice and dried herbs, supported by notable acid/tannin spines.

See Emma’s pick from the latest New Zealand Pinot Noir releases

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Australian Securities Exchange-listed Santana Minerals said in June that it was pressing ahead with its NZ$4.4bn Bendigo-Ophir gold mine project, and would lodge an application under the New Zealand government’s new Fast Track Approvals Act.

The proposed site lies within an ‘outstanding natural landscape’, a designation intended to protect the unique environment and scenery that underpins one of the country’s flagship wine regions and tourism destinations.

The 2024 act allows ‘nationally significant’ projects to be fast-tracked through an expert panel, with final decisions made by ministers.

Critics of the fast-track law argue the new process could weaken scrutiny, sideline local voices and remove broader public input, potentially increasing environmental risks.

Central Otago Winegrowers Association (COWA) has written to New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, requesting it be included in the process as an affected party.

‘Central Otago has built a globally respected brand founded on premium wine production, authentic visitor experiences and environmental stewardship,’ said COWA.

‘These industries are long-term, value-generating investments. The risk of environmental degradation, reputational harm and disruption to this workforce must be weighed seriously.

‘The expected returns from the mine… stand in stark contrast to the enduring, compounding economic value provided by wine and tourism. This imbalance raises serious questions about the strategic benefit to New Zealand.’

The gold mine project’s scale is significant – an open pit nearly a kilometre wide and 200 metres deep, with additional pits and a tailings dam.

Santana insisted environmental safeguards will be robust. It said in June that several key ecological reports were in progress, and that environmental considerations and community engagement are central to its planning.

However, there has been local public opposition to the new gold mine project, led by groups such as Sustainable Tarras. Concerns range from possible contamination of water and long-term ecological harm to the impact on regional tourism and damage to the area’s fine wine identity.

The Central Otago District Council said in June that it would be challenging to adequately review the proposed project under the fast-track act’s compressed timeframes, reported local media outlet Wānaka App. It said the council had also warned Santana subsidiary Matakanui Gold over breaches to the district plan, although it added the firm was working with authorities to address the issues.

Santana said its Bendigo-Ophir gold mine plans will generate ‘an average of 364 direct jobs and about 500 indirect jobs during operations’, plus NZ$900m in taxes and royalties.

The group recently acquired 2,880 hectares (ha) of land for the project for NZ$25m, subject to Overseas Investment Office approval, with gold production targeted by late 2026.

Despite local concerns, Damian Spring, CEO of Santana Minerals, said in June, ‘For many of our team this is our home too, and our focus is on listening, refining and working together to build a project that Central Otago can be proud of for generations to come.’

Winegrowers have warned of the need for proper oversight and said they are determined to ensure the voices of Central Otago’s wine and wider community are not ignored. 

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If strangers with wildly different histories and paradigms set out to complete a task together, what would happen?

This abstract thought experiment has been formally conducted in France and New Zealand since 2006.

France, and Burgundy specifically, has been producing some of the world’s most sought-after wine for two millennia. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were born in Burgundy, and Cistercian monks created and refined the concept of terroir there.

New Zealand, meanwhile, is the youngest major wine-producing country in the world. Winemakers there are hailed for modernising the concept of terroir by infusing it with Māori values such as kaitiakitanga and tūrangawaewae, which links sustainability, and a deep human connection to place.

And we all know what they did with Savvy B…

Despite the stark differences, the global wine community is intimate, and Burgundy and New Zealand have been connected for decades.

How it started

‘In 2006, Sophie Confuron of Domaine Jean-Jacques Confuron came down to Central Otago for the first time,’ says Nick Mills (below), winemaker and general manager at his family estate, Rippon Vineyard, recalling the start of this co-fermentation of viticultures.

He knew Confuron well and had spent years in Burgundy himself studying viticulture in Beaune and working as a cellar rat at Domaine Jean-Jacques Confuron, Nicolas Potel, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and others.

‘We’d asked her to come down and present at the 2006 Central Otago Pinot Noir Celebration, on how the Cistercians’ beliefs and practices had advanced the notion of terroir,’ he explains.

The journey inspired Confuron to propose a student exchange between Central Otago and Burgundy.

The first official Central Otago Burgundy Exchange (COBEX) occurred in 2007, with a growers association and college in each region coordinating logistics.

Every year, wineries in each region agree to host stagiaires (interns) from abroad, providing them with the opportunity to experience a harvest and become immersed in the hosting region’s approach to farming, wine and culture.

The COBEX experience has had ripple effects on each region’s approach to viticulture and human culture.

Influence on viticulture

Stagiaires from Central Otago head to Burgundy to, ‘gain insight from the centuries of attention to specific vineyard sites, and the enormous history and respect for tradition there that a person from a very young country like New Zealand cannot fully appreciate until being fully immersed in it,’ says Carolyn Murray (below), general manager of the Central Otago Winegrowers Association.

Conversely, Burgundians arrive in Otago to discover what it’s like to work in a region devoted to fine wine, but without ‘detailed geographical and political overlays, and therefore free of the sort of constraints they have grown used to,’ Murray explains.

For Ben Leen, winemaker at Amisfield Winery, one of the stagiaires who descended on Burgundy in 2022, the experience was a revelation.

Feet on soil

‘Walking the vineyards with the owners, and being in places I’d only ever heard of discussed in hushed tones, like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, gave me a deep understanding of the tapestry and layers of terroir,’ he says.

‘We would open wines from the parcel that we had just walked for context, and I understood everything at a much more micro level. It helped me approach terroir very differently when I returned,’ he adds.

Leen’s method shifted, and he began seeing a season in its totality, while allowing different sections of the vineyard to ‘speak’ to him.

‘I began to see how every square metre has a different personality, and a different way of responding and performing,’ Leen says.

‘No-one in Burgundy talks about pH or residual sugar. That was so revelatory. The knowledge and devotion to science is there, but the understanding of wine seemed deeper.’

Influence on human terroir

While Burgundy’s effect on Central Otago’s approach to physical terroir is arguably more pronounced, the opposite is true for human culture.

‘We are just floating in this vast ocean in New Zealand,’ says Mills. ‘There’s an incredible freedom of spirit. You can imagine almost anything happening. In Burgundy, it’s much more insular, with centuries of history.’

Cistercians built walls, created hierarchies and codified degrees, essentially, of holiness from site to site.

In Otago, the physical remoteness of the country imbues the people with a deep connection to their own personal plot of land, Mills argues, but also with the freedom to farm, cultivate and perceive it as they want to.

‘Central Otago is so free and youthful in comparison to Burgundy, and the stagiaires who come here to experience it return home with a new sense of openness,’ Mills says.

Close connections

The regions have also found opportunities to support each other emotionally and financially through their close-knit exchange.

‘Central Otago Winegrowers made a donation of €5,000 to the Association for the Restoration of the Abbaye de St-Vivant, where the very notion of terroir was seeded,’ says Murray.

‘And after the Christchurch earthquake, our friends in Burgundy sent rare, old and large format bottles of their wine to New Zealand, which we offered at auction and raised over NZ$40,000 for earthquake appeal.’

In practice, the thought experiment has yielded arguably better wine through a more precise approach to viticulture, and a more open approach to human culture.

It also fermented a long and unexpectedly symbiotic friendship, with impacts that ripple well beyond the world of wine.

The Central Otago Burgundy Exchange: the facts

The concept for the exchange was born in 2006.

It has been conducted every year since, with a two-year pause during Covid-19.

More than 100 stagiaires have travelled on the exchange.

COBEX is run by a grower association and an agricultural college on each side.

In Burgundy: Mosaïque Bourgogne International and the CFPPA de Beaune.

In New Zealand: Central Otago Winegrowers Association and the Otago Polytechnic Central Campus.

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Think of New Zealand white wine and Sauvignon Blanc most likely comes to mind.

But now might be the perfect time to reconsider, for New Zealand Chardonnay has never been better, steadily gaining recognition for its balance of fruit purity, bright acidity and silky complexity.

Chardonnay accounts for just 9% of vineyard area and less than 2% of exports – compared to Sauvignon Blanc’s dominating 80% and 85% – according to the New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Report 2024.

But with near-perfect growing conditions and increasingly refined winemaking, Chardonnay remains one of the country’s best-kept secrets, offering quality – and value – that are worth seeking out.

Scroll down for notes and scores of 12 of New Zealand’s best Chardonnay

New Zealand’s first Chardonnays likely emerged in the 1950s, though records are unclear. The variety gained traction in the 1980s with the bold, buttery, heavily oaked styles that were popular at the time.

By the 1990s, it was the country’s most-planted white variety and winemakers were increasingly getting to grips with more sophisticated production techniques.

However, the global Anything But Chardonnay movement and meteoric rise of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc soon saw it eclipsed.

Today, Chardonnay is the country’s second most-planted white variety, slightly ahead of Pinot Gris, though plantings have remained static over the past decade.

A cool customer

Nonetheless, Chardonnay continues to be beloved by producers. It is the focus of the Aotearoa Chardonnay Symposium, an annual Hawke’s Bay event featuring local and international experts.

The 2024 keynote speakers included Burgundy authority Jasper Morris MW, and writer and California specialist Elaine Chukan Brown.

She praised New Zealand Chardonnay as: ‘One of its most exciting varieties, offering an electric acidity akin to a high wattage lightbulb wearing a diffusing lens: elevated and stimulating with the edges softened to pleasurable brightness.’

New Zealand’s ideal growing conditions contribute to these characteristics. Kumeu River winemaker Michael Brajkovich MW, whose own wines have famously bested top Burgundies in international blind tastings, argues that New Zealand’s cool climate and long growing season is especially well-suited for high quality Chardonnay production.

‘There is nowhere in New Zealand that has a truly hot, or even warm, climate,’ he explains. ‘We are all dealing in cool climate viticulture with a variety that is inherently well suited to it, and better suited than just about any other for making quality dry white wine.’

Steve Smith MW, co-owner of Pyramid Valley and Smith & Sheth, concurs, ‘We can get the grapes properly ripe at 12.5-13.5% alcohol. They don’t get overripe because it’s not hot – and at full ripeness we also have an energy and natural acidity, which most other parts of the New World and many parts of Europe cannot achieve anymore because it is getting warmer.’

A great New Zealand Chardonnay, he notes, will be quite complex rather than overtly fruity, with delicious ripeness and a sense of energy and freshness.

Evolution of style

The complexity is further enhanced by evolving winemaking techniques. In recent years, winemakers have dialed back smaller, newer oak in favour of older, larger formats or concrete and clay vessels.

This helps to highlight fruit purity and minerality, giving more linear, precise wines. Wild fermentation, extended lees maturation, and intentional reduction have become common, resulting in more textured, complex wines with a stronger sense of place.

Brajkovich observes: ‘Whereas in the past many NZ Chardonnays were very similar, based on the model of Côte de Beaune, we are now seeing more diversity of style, with less oak, more zest and greater drinkability when young.’

Single vineyard expressions are increasingly common, aided by the benefit of detailed understanding of clonal selection. ‘We now possess a collection of different selections of Chardonnay that complement each other,’ says Smith. ‘You can do a lot of the crafting of the wine this way, for example balancing fruit expression or acidity.’

Demand and diversity

Although total plantings have remained static, consumer interest in New Zealand Chardonnay is quietly growing. Some producers, such as Cloudy Bay and Isabel Estate in Marlborough, are struggling to meet demand and are expanding Chardonnay plantings.

Despite its limited production, the variety offers genuine depth and quality. It was difficult to narrow down the accompanying wine selection for this article (see below).

New Zealand Chardonnay might currently be overshadowed in a crowded global marketplace, but it delivers outstanding quality at a fraction of the price of many Burgundies, Californian Chardonnays, or even Australian counterparts, making it an exciting prospect for savvy Chardonnay lovers.

Around the regions: Where to find the best NZ Chardonnay

Chardonnay is grown across New Zealand with all regions producing genuinely exciting wines. From The Landing’s sleek examples revitalising Northland wine to Central Otago’s minerally, precise styles, each area has distinctive characteristics.

Here are the key regions…

Hawke’s Bay

The country’s second-largest wine region is a hotspot for premium Chardonnay, with over 1,000ha planted. There’s a temperate maritime climate and kaleidoscopic soils courtesy of four river systems.

Varied subregions – ranging from cooler coastal to warmer inland sites such as the Gimblett Gravels – produce rich, structured wines with yellow stonefruit, citrus and creamy nut notes.

Wairarapa

Just 62ha planted, but excellent quality with high-profile producers. Long dry summers and cool nights enhance elegance, while the deep free-draining soils contribute texture and minerality.

Expect ripe lemon, white peach, tangy acid and savoury depth.

Marlborough

Best known for Sauvignon Blanc, though Chardonnay is increasingly being grown in the clay-rich soils of the Southern Valleys subregion.

Grapefruit, stonefruit and red apple with crisp acidity are typical; palate structure is more linear than Hawke’s Bay. Chardonnay plays a key role in the region’s distinctive sparkling wines. 1,083ha planted.

Nelson

High sunshine, protective hills and a cooling maritime influence yield intense fruit expression – think stone fruit, melon, orchard fruit and citrus – with crisp structure.

The clay soils of the Moutere Hills add depth and silky texture, whilst alluvial Waimea Plains wines are fine and fragrant. 109ha planted.

North Canterbury

The long, dry growing season, cool nights and often limestone-rich soils produce complex, structured Chardonnays with vibrant acidity. Fine citrus, white peach and flinty minerality are typical.

Just 99ha are planted here, but top producers have put the region on the Chardonnay map for seriously ageworthy wines.

Central Otago & Waitaki

World-renowned for Pinot Noir, but Chardonnay plantings (92ha) are steadily increasing for still and sparkling wines. The dry, semi-continental climate gives excellent tension, fresh acidity and concentrated flavour.

Expect bright citrus, white peach and nectarine, green apple, white flowers and saline, oyster shell minerality. The tiny North Otago region of Waitaki Valley (just 6ha) is gaining attention for limestone-driven fragrant, zesty wines.

Gisbourne

At 582ha, Chardonnay is the region’s dominant variety, and its high sunshine, mild climate and rich, alluvial soils deliver aromatic, lushly fruited wines with good body and texture.

Many wines are made for early-drinking pleasure but the best mature well with good complexity.

Top New Zealand Chardonnay: 12 to try

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There was a time when you could easily pick a Central Otago Pinot Noir out of a blind line up. The bold, muscular and ripe wine would always be the ticket, its intensity and power reflecting the stark beauty of the landscape.

How things change. With less extraction, less oak and earlier harvests, the wines have seen a reset that allows fruit and provenance to shine – while revealing the sometimes subtle, sometimes marked differences between Central Otago’s distinct subregions.

With just 2,054ha of vines, Central Otago on New Zealand’s South Island represents just 4.9% of the country’s vineyards, according to the New Zealand Wine Vineyard Report 2023. But it is home to 29.2% of the country’s Pinot Noir plantings.

This means that Pinot Noir takes up just over 80% of Central Otago’s vineyards, set against snow-capped peaks and glacial lakes.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for 20 Central Otago Pinots

The region’s pristine air translates into some of the world’s most intense sunshine, which explains the once much punchier wine style that initially put Central Otago on the map. Grapes were harvested at plush maximum ripeness and high potential alcohol, which was then underlined in the winery by vigorous extraction of tannins and ageing in small, often new oak barrels.

An evolution of style

But sensibilities have changed. Earlier harvests now prize aromatics over alcohol, while both extraction and new oak are dialled back. Jen Parr, winemaker at Valli Wine in Gibbston, says: ‘The concept of ripeness has changed, not only for Valli but for most of us.’ Less is now more and red-fruited, floral aromas are more common than black cherry or dark-fleshed plum.

‘Twenty years ago when you did not do a punch down every four hours, there was something wrong with you,’ quips Rudi Bauer, co-owner and winemaker at Quartz Reef in Bendigo.

His much younger colleague Brian Shaw, co-owner and winemaker at Wild Irishman in Alexandra, explains how gently he now extracts.

‘2019 was the first year we really pulled back. We now just keep the cap wet with a watering can, and – if we can handle it – we will give the ferment just one punch down over the entire time.’

Duncan Forsyth of Mount Edward sums it up when he says: ‘The way we have evolved stylistically is that these elements like tannin and acid are coming at you anyway. We now have less extraction and aim to have an elegant, supple, soft representation of these vineyards.’

This new, more restrained approach allows us drinkers to taste real differences between Central Otago’s subregions.

From the cool Gibbston Valley, via warm Bannockburn, to arid Alexandra in the south, along either side of the Clutha river in Lowburn, Pisa and Bendigo, up to more temperate Wanaka in the north.

Not forgetting the tiny offshoot of Waitaki Valley, which links Central Otago and the South Island’s eastern coast.

Let’s take a look at these subregions from north to south…

Wanaka

On vineyards sloping towards and surrounding picturesque Lake Wānaka, a glacial freshwater lake and New Zealand’s fourth-largest, this cooler subregion gets 600mm of annual rainfall.

Vines grow on a mixture of schist-based soils, moraines and clays, at altitudes up to 400m. The lake acts as a moderating influence.

‘Wanaka is not as hot, not as cold, not as dry,’ as the other subregions of Central Otago, says Nick Mills of Rippon Vineyard. ‘Wanaka is the most temperate climate of Central Otago. Precision and articulation of tannin are the calling cards of this valley,’ he adds.

Bendigo

These west and north-west facing slopes on the eastern shore of Lake Dunstan are some of the warmest vineyard sites in Central Otago. ‘Sun-drenched’ is how Misha Wilkinson (below) of Misha’s Vineyard puts it, with the vines basking in every last ray of sunshine until sunset.

Since vineyards slope down to the lakeshore, both water and cold air drain freely on very rocky, schistous soils. Vines at around 200m at the lake shore are harvested three to four weeks before those higher up at around 400m.

Both quartz and calcium carbonate seams crop up on these hillsides. The soils create structured Pinot Noirs with firm tannins that enable these wines to age and evolve – in fact, they are better with bottle age.

Gibbston

This region along the Kawarau Gorge extending east of Queenstown is ‘the highest, wettest and coldest subregion of Central Otago’, says Shaw of Wild Irishman.

Vines root in loess, loams and gravels on top of schist at altitudes between 300m and 480m. They get 550-600mm of rain per year. Gibbston is probably the most distinct Central Otago subregion in character, with vividly red-fruited, tender, translucent yet expressive wines.

Fine, tea-like tannins and floral, peppery overtones mean Gibbston-grown Pinots are some of the most perfumed and aromatic. ‘Gibbston is all about fragrance,’ concludes Parr of Valli Wines.

Cromwell, Lowburn & Pisa

Extending north from Cromwell on the western shore of Lake Dunstan, Lowburn and Pisa sites are varied. Some are in the valley on deeper soils that have been farmed for a long time; others are on slopes of up to 350m.

The vines root in a mix of silts, loams, with quartz, calcium carbonate, schist and sandstone. ‘The climate is severe,’ explains Yoshiaki Sato of Sato Wines. ‘Cold air always runs down from the mountain.

‘But we are facing east, so we warm up quickly in the morning, between 45 minutes and an hour earlier than Bendigo [across Lake Dunstan]. In the afternoon it is the opposite. We get less of the intense sunlight,’ he adds.

Fine tannins, clarity and exquisite brightness run through these nervy, translucent wines.

Bannockburn

Deeper soils – of loam, clay, silt, gravel, loess and even clay on top of schist bedrock – are a distinguishing feature of Bannockburn. Meanwhile its climate is the warmest in Central Otago.

It extends south of Cromwell along the Kawarau Gorge. It is the quality of the tannins that distinguishes Bannockburn, uniting ripeness with density and finesse.

Yes, there is power in these wines, but it is controlled and elegant rather than punchy.

Alexandra

This is Central Otago’s most southerly subregion along the Clutha River. Shaw of Wild Irishman notes: ‘Alexandra is the hottest and coldest place in New Zealand – it is very continental.’

The dramatic temperature shifts here see the highest day and coldest night temperatures. With just 300-350mm of rain per year, it is also the driest.

The vineyards, much lower-lying at around 150-200m, grow mostly on alluvial silts and sandy gravels, again on schist bedrock. The wines show a different, more elastic tannin structure, with vivid juiciness and energetic fruit.

Waitaki Valley

This tiny subregion is really nothing more than an outpost, some 2.5 hours’ drive north-east from Cromwell in North Otago.

Here there are just 59ha of vines rooting in limestone. The climate is cool, even marginal, and frost is always a risk. The coolness means that bunch weights are lower and that harvests can last into May.

Everything here is fraught with risk, but the wines are delicate yet intense expressions of Pinot Noir with red-fruited depth, vivid tension and beguiling aromatics.

Valli’s Parr says: ‘Making Waitaki wines is the wildest ride of my career.’

Central Otago: recent vintages

2022: Sufficient rain and warm, dry conditions in the growing season spelled some higher yields. But fruit was healthy and beautifully balanced.

2021: A splendid growing season with a coolish start but fine, dry harvest and exquisite and healthy fruit. These wines will hit the UK later this year.

2020: A cool season in Central Otago with some poor flowering, so Bendigo and Bannockburn saw lower yields. But the wines from the Covid vintage are beautiful.

2019: Poor flowering, caused by dampness in spring, spelled concentrated fruit that ripened well with sufficient temperature and water.

2018: After the hottest growing season ever, harvest in Central Otago was very early and the wines seem more developed than others at the same age, already showing clear evolution.

Central Otago Pinot Noir: 20 to try

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It’s ironic that when I go to interview actor and wine producer Sam Neill at his Central Otago farm, HQ for his Two Paddocks wines, he isn’t there.

Because as well as being famous for his roles in, among others, The Piano and the Jurassic Park franchise, and TV’s Peaky Blinders, Neill has a reputation as the most hands-on of celebrity winemakers; when he’s not travelling for work, he lives at the farm, where he’s known affectionately as ‘The Proprietor’ or simply ‘The Prop’.

He built a house there, in among the vines, and it’s very much his base, to the extent that when he received a devastating blood cancer diagnosis two years ago, he told the specialist (in Australia) ‘that I wouldn’t come back for a few days, that I hadn’t been to my farm for months and I needed to sleep in my own bed… plant something, be a farmer and a wine producer, even if it was only for a few days. I really needed to do that.’

Scroll down to see notes and scores for eight wines from Sam Neill’s Two Paddocks estate

Finding time

He wrote this in his engaging memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? (paperback, £10.99 Penguin, March 2024), penned during treatment that has proved largely successful – he’s now in full metabolic remission, though still taking preventative drugs.

The book devotes two full chapters to his life in wine and the pages might as well have red wine sploshes all over them, so clear is Neill’s love for the subject, and for Pinot Noir in particular.

I didn’t meet Neill that day; he had been called abroad hurriedly due to a changed film schedule. But I spent an afternoon with his close teammates, winemaker Dean Shaw (who has worked with Two Paddocks since 1999) and viticulturist Mike Wing (joined in 2004).

And a full tasting of Two Paddocks’ releases later, I got to scratch the bristly head of Neill’s beloved kunekune, pig Angelica, which is actually a boar, so that was some compensation.

We schedule a Zoom interview, me back in the UK with a bottle of Two Paddocks Riesling open on my desk as it’s 8pm, and Neill apologising for his jet lag at 9am NZ time back on the farm.

He has just flown in from the US, where he has been publicising his new TV drama Apples Never Fall, co-starring Annette Bening. He perks up the moment we start to talk about wine and we move quickly to his favourite subject, ‘Lord Pinot’.

Falling in love

In another life, Neill might have joined the drinks trade, as he had family connections. Wines and spirits were a core part of New Zealand company Neill & Co, where his father (post-army career) and grandfather both worked.

But Neill showed little interest in drinks until he visited the great actor James Mason at his home on the shores of lake Geneva in 1980, where he was introduced to red Burgundy during a meal at Charlie Chaplin’s favourite restaurant.

Neill was immediately smitten and is still cross that he can’t remember precisely where that first wine originated. He ‘continued his love affair with Burgundy for the next 12 years or so’, discovering Pinot from Oregon along the way.

It was the late Rolfe Mills of Rippon Vineyard at lake Wanaka in Central Otago who first put in Neill’s head the idea of growing Pinot there; Neill describes tasting Rippon’s 1991 Pinot as a ‘lightbulb moment’.

His first vineyard was planted in 1993 in the middle of the Gibbston valley. Neill’s film director mate Roger Donaldson bought the next plot along, hence Two Paddocks. ‘It really was a gamble,’ Neill admits.

‘No one knew how those initial two hectares of Pinot would fare in what is quite an extreme climate. Gibbston is the highest region in Central, surrounded by the southern Alps – very cold in winter, heat never guaranteed, and frost can come at almost any time.

‘We had snow up the valley while I was away this year in February. Rational people shouldn’t make wine here,’ Neill half-jokes, ‘but I’ve learned that to produce great Pinot, you have to teeter on the edge of viability.’

He now owns three more vineyards: the Red Bank Farm and home base at Earnscleugh, Alexandra, bought in 2000; the Last Chance vineyard close to Alexandra, which Neill ventures ‘might be the most southerly vineyard in the world’, through which runs a small water race, hand-dug by gold miners in the 1860s; and finally the Fusilier vineyard in Bannockburn, named after his army officer father.

The Fusilier, purchased in 2013, is on Felton Road, very close to Felton Road Wines, and it’s clear the famous location meant a lot to Neill, thanks to the healthy rivalry between the two producers.

Two Paddocks at a glance

Founded: 1993

First vintage: 1997

Owner: Sam Neill

Vineyards: Red Bank Farm (Earnscleugh, Alexandra); The First Paddock (Gibbston); The Last Chance (Earnscleugh, Alexandra); The Fusilier (Bannockburn)

Varieties: Pinot Noir and Riesling

Organic: Certified BioGro since 2017

Free-range Otago boy

What makes Central Otago Pinot so special? Neill thinks for a while before replying that the wines are particularly ‘vivid’. Some claim that the gold that may still be in the soil accounts for such vivacity, but he doesn’t have a firm opinion on this himself.

Rather he looks for a source of the ‘toasted herbs’ in his wines and finds it in the wild thyme bushes that grow in large thickets across the region’s dry hills. ‘Thyme was planted by 19th-century Chinese gold diggers to ward off insects – now it’s everywhere and it can influence the wine, just as eucalyptus can do in Australia.’

Back at Red Bank Farm, 5.5ha of Pinot and Riesling are joined by many other crops, including lavender (to produce lavender oil), saffron, olives and cherries, as well as oak trees. The oak has been planted by Neill as recompense for his use of barrels in the winery. ‘It’s on my conscience,’ he says. ‘Someone using oak should be planting oak.’

Nigel Greening, the British owner of Felton Road Wines, says that Neill ‘grew up a free-range Otago boy and is always happiest when on the farm… He’s the antithesis of the famous film star with a vineyard – far more concerned with honesty in his wines than in impressing people.’

Notable Pinot wizard Larry McKenna, who has worked as consultant to Two Paddocks over many years, adds: ‘I think he feels the “celebrity winemaker” tag, but he does not sign up to it or think of himself in that way.’

Going his own way

Conversion to organic viticulture was Neill’s decision – his teammates roll their eyes when remembering his insistence. He ‘hates the scorched earth policy’ and ‘can’t bear to drive past vineyards which are conventional after seeing what herbicides do’.

After a short interruption in organic viticulture when weed control had to be used for newly acquired vineyards, Two Paddocks wines were re-certified organic by BioGro in 2017. Neill is the first to suggest that thanks to Central Otago’s low humidity and persistent winds it’s easier to farm organically here than in some areas.

Affable, relaxed but not remotely ‘luvvie’, Neill nonetheless holds some entrenched views. Most are positive – interestingly, he admires the Shiraz of former Penfolds winemaker John Duval, now of the eponymous Barossa winery.

But he has his strong dislikes; he loathes ‘horrible corks’ and was ‘absolutely infuriated’ when he lost a third of his 1999 bottles to cork taint. Since 2001, Two Paddocks has only used Stelvin screw caps. And, he declares, ‘Pinot Gris does nothing for me’, in a region where the grape is often extolled.

He does have plenty of time for Riesling, however, having been ‘converted to it in Alsace’ while he was filming there during the 1980s. ‘Riesling planted in Central Otago just sits up and says, “I love it here.” You can’t grow Riesling everywhere, like you can with Chardonnay, but it works here particularly well.’

He points to the kerosene complexity of mature Central Otago Rieslings; certainly his younger wines are promisingly delicious.

Where to next? For now, Neill seems satisfied with his four vineyards in Central Otago. ‘They are all distinctly different and there’s something Burgundian about that. The sub-regions are becoming increasingly recognised and really, I welcome it.’

As for the Two Paddocks style of Pinot: ‘We were making subtle, restrained wines 20 years ago, when Central Otago was getting a name for rather obvious fruit bombs. We continue to go our own way.’

Central Otago star power: Susy Atkins’ eight wines to try from Two Paddocks

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It is that time of year when the New Zealand new release Sauvignon Blancs are hitting international shelves. The 2022 wines are now available in UK retail and – after the meagre harvest in 2021 that was almost a global Sauvignon Blanc shortage – the 2022 harvest was plentiful.

At a new release tasting in London in November, however, it was clear that what needs highlighting most are varieties beyond the behemoth that is Sauvignon Blanc, which represents 72% of New Zealand’s wine production and 85% of its total wine exports.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of 15 New Zealand new release wines

Albariño, Viognier, Riesling and Grüner Veltliner jumped out for their sheer personality – no surprise given how Sauvignon Blanc proved how wonderfully suited these temperate to cool islands in the South Pacific are for aromatic grapes.

That said, two Sauvignon Blancs also feature in my line-up, one highlighting a subtle single-vineyard expression and the other rounded, oak-aged characters. There now is so much more stylistic diversity within this key category that wine lovers who are ready to graduate from the overt passionfruit, lime and grassy aromas of cool and stainless-steel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc will find much to enjoy.

I’ve also selected a lovely Marlborough Chardonnay from a new start-up called Vineyard Productions, a joint venture between two British Masters of Wine and boutique Kiwi winegrowers. You will note that not all whites I’ve picked are from the 2022 vintage – some have enjoyed a little bit more time to become themselves.

Ageworthy Pinots impress

When it comes to reds, it was Pinot Noir that stood out for me – not a surprise, really, since it is New Zealand’s most planted red grape variety. What is interesting is the crystallisation of regional identity and an increasingly refined approach that chases expression over power.

While the top examples are not cheap, they represent fantastic value for money and, as a range of mature wines also shown at the tasting amply demonstrated, New Zealand Pinots age and evolve beautifully. With red Burgundy being scarce and eye-wateringly expensive, New Zealand wines are a credible and worthwhile alternative.

Lovers of fuller-bodied reds will enjoy two seductive Syrahs I’ve singled out, as well as an elegant Bordeaux blend – all three hailing from the slightly warmer Hawke’s Bay region on the North Island.

The Syrahs blend the peppery spice of the Rhône with the ripeness of Southern Hemisphere sunshine without tipping into bulkiness, a combination I always find compelling. The great-value Bordeaux blend, meanwhile, features that same deft balance as the Syrahs, along with real charm.

New Zealand new release wines: 15 whites and reds to try

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It is what many dream of: you are an experienced executive at the top of your game, you have seen it all. Then you leave it all behind to buy a vineyard. And no, not in a famous region, but an emerging region on the other side of the world.

That is the story of Nigel Greening, British-born owner of Felton Road in Central Otago, New Zealand, who just celebrated his 25th vintage. But as anyone who has met Greening will know, marking this milestone is not a self-congratulatory rest on well-earned laurels but an opportunity to reflect on this ever-evolving project, as pioneering now as it was on its first day.

Artisan and authentic

‘I did not want to die of a heart attack on a 747 when I was 65. I wasn’t going to do the job I did,’ Greening says about his life in the mid-1990s. He was in his mid-40s then.

‘I was a creative director mainly doing very large corporate events, big expo pavilions; very stressful, high adrenaline, high-energy stuff. That was not a long-term thing.’ Yet Greening’s story differs significantly from the usual trope of a tech or banking tycoon buying a vanity vineyard.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 12 Felton Road wines to try

Greening also happened to be part of a working committee set up by the British government with the remit of looking at what the new millennium would hold. This led to a connection with Oliver Sparrow, then director of the Chatham House think-tank.

‘I was privileged to have Oliver’s insight,’ Greening says and summarises Sparrow’s societal theory. Sparrow had identified four categories of people who would prosper in the age of post-industrial feudalism. ‘First, the surfers who’d keep up with the change of technology, see a wave coming, ride it without falling off, these would be the feudal overlords. Everybody else would become a serf. But artists or artisans, carers and authentics or originals would also do well.’

Greening took Sparrow’s theory – which has now come to pass – to heart.

Ticking magical boxes

In the end, it was a project for German car manufacturer BMW in the Far East that took Greening to the other side of the world. ‘I had been to New Zealand on holiday, and I liked it,’ he remembers. ‘So I said if I could live in Wanaka, maybe I’d say yes. They said New Zealand was fine, so I went to Wanaka for a year to work for BMW.

The first night I was there, I went into a wine shop to get a bottle of wine for tea. They had a thing where winemakers presented top New Zealand Chardonnay and I got a ticket. From that next morning – and this is interesting – I wasn’t thinking ‘oh yes that is what I want to do,’ but I realised if I started researching, if I could get it right. I could be both an artisan and an authentic, and tick two of Oliver’s four magic boxes.’

Apricots and elms

At the time, Central Otago was just emerging as a wine region. Stuart Elms, a hotelier and blackcurrant farmer from Dunedin, had prospected and bought land along the Felton Road in Bannockburn. He planted Blocks 1, 2 and 3 in 1992.

The first wine was made in 1995 by Grant Taylor, now of Valli Wines, then winemaker at Gibbston Valley. It was just one hogshead barrel, not even 250 litres. The first proper vintage was not until 1997 – hence the 25th anniversary in 2022.

At the time, Elms’ plantings doubled Central Otago’s vine hectarage, which grew from 19ha in 1990 to 244ha in 1999 and 2,055ha today. By then, Greening had done his research and divined Cornish Point, an apricot orchard, as his ideal vineyard. He bought the site in 1999 and planted it in 2000. Later the same year, he bought the Felton Road estate from Stuart Elms – hence the elm tree on every screwcap.

The adventure begins

Was Greening a wine lover before? ‘I was a Burgundy drinker of great enthusiasm in an age where we could still do that; and I was familiar with the things at Calera,’ he says, referring to the legendary California Pinot Noir estate.

When did biodynamics start? ‘Pretty much right away,’ Greening says. Winemaker Blair Walter and viticulturist Gareth King both wanted to convert to organics. Due to a number of Burgundy estates working this way, Greening was aware of biodynamic methods. ‘I wasn’t convinced by the science, because there wasn’t any, but I wasn’t averse to it,’ he says.

Trials started straight away. ‘It took us a couple of years of gradual transition, so it wasn’t too scary.’ But people took note of the wine, especially in the UK where the wines were first imported by the late John Avery.

‘One thing is weird about Felton Road,’ Greening says. ‘At the point I bought it in 1999, it still was not on the radar. But [US critic Robert] Parker had seen it and had given it an amazing write-up – that caused a lot of people to pay attention.’

Does he have any regrets? ‘Oh no,’ he says with complete conviction. He remembers a line in Decanter by one of the first wine writers ever to visit Felton Road, describing Greening ‘walking through Block 3 with a mix of paternal pride and a lottery winner’s disbelief’. He smiles: ‘This was three months after I bought it, right at the end of 1999.’

Two halves

Walter has made every Felton vintage since 1997 and King was on board almost from the beginning too. It speaks volumes that both are still there, not only having stayed the course but expanded, evolved and shaped it. Greening, Walter and King learned and evolved together.

‘We regard 2012 as our renaissance, the year when we woke up,’ says Greening. ‘2011 sealed it for us. Just as we got to harvest, the grapes just started losing it, so we hauled the vintage earlier than we usually do. Hang on,’ he says emphatically. ‘This is not as ripe but we like it better’.

This meant that they switched to picking earlier from 2012 onwards. He says ‘Felton Road lives in these two halves, before and after.’ The wines clearly have more tension and ageability now.

Felton Road at a glance

Founded 1992

Owner Nigel Greening

Vineyard area 32ha

Varieties Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling

Key vineyards Elms, Cornish Point, Calvert, MacMuir

Single site wines Block 1 Riesling, Block 2 Chardonnay, Block 6 Chardonnay, Block 3 Pinot Noir

Forever evolving

‘We’ve got a very detailed replanting book that runs for about 30 years,’ Greening says. It is about future-proofing the estate, gradually moving over drought-tolerant rootstocks and ‘looking at new clonal possibilities as well as massal selections’. Everything is being fine-tuned.

‘Apart from the guys who do the viticulture, we have a technical viticultural team. They do nothing but measure. They are counting bunches, counting berries, how many buds versus the spacing between buds… They are looking to establish patterns of data. Every time they see a weak vine, it will be tagged, numbered and entered into a recovery programme,’ he says.

‘Everything is at individual vine level, leading to much more accurate control of things like irrigation. We are moving irrigation underground, ending drip irrigation. This is to help us with regenerative farming. We crimp rather than cut weeds… we have all these plans. There is a lot of technical stuff that we have to research.’

Insatiably curious

Greening clearly sweats the small stuff: ‘We are now formally auditing carbons to IWCA [International Wineries for Climate Action] standards which in itself is very instructive. I love the rigour of IWCA.’ Their carbon audit extends to recording the means of transport of every visitor to the tasting room – did they come in a 4×4 or cycle?

‘We have to audit for every bottle of Felton Road in the world to its final consumption. The only way you can do it is with algorithms, you have to start by building models and have to make assumptions. This is very rigorous stuff. We are learning a lot from it,’ he says.

So once again Felton Road is at the forefront of viticulture. Greening is clear what all this carbon auditing means: ‘Ultimately, we will have to plant a forest – it will be in New Zealand, 30,000 to 40,000 trees, as the maths work themselves out,’ he says with a satisfied smile which then expands to a broad, happy grin.

‘It is so much easier to plan for the future when you do not have to darling growth!’

Felton Road: 12 wines to seek out

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New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc: panel tasting results

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Roger Jones, Melanie Brown and Rebecca Palmer tasted 116 wines, with one Exceptional, five Outstanding and 40 Highly Recommended.

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc panel tasting scores

116 wines tasted

Exceptional 1

Outstanding 5

Highly recommended 40

Recommended 45

Commended 21

Fair 4

Poor 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their latest releases of still white wines made with 100% Sauvignon Blanc from any region in New Zealand

New Zealand wines – particularly Sauvignon Blanc – suffered severe shortages in the 2021 vintage, so it was gratifying to see such a large number entered for this two-day tasting. In our discussions during and following it, we three judges considered regional and vintage differences as well as the range of Sauvignon Blanc styles, notably considering whether there is a lighter, more focused style emerging.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top wines in the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc panel tasting

Highlights came from Wairarapa on North Island, which showed real quality and refinement, thanks in part to the free-draining alluvial gravels and clay silts of the terraces which produce small, concentrated berries. On South Island, wines from Waipara showcased a fresh, clean style that impressed. Likewise, it was pleasing to see what Central Otago (especially the Bannockburn sub-region) can produce – it is certainly a region to watch.

Marlborough dominated, with the Wairau sub-region a positive. Notably, we questioned whether Marlborough producers were moving away from punchy, fruity styles (that made the region’s name and which many consumers still love) to a more elegant ‘European’ style. Melanie Brown wondered if Marlborough winemakers were ‘scared to own their classic style’, or whether Mother Nature and financial circumstances had forced them into higher yields, thereby producing lighter-styled wines.

See all 116 wines from the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc panel tasting

Roger Jones considered whether producers were just responding to consumers’ changing palates. ‘Maybe Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc drinkers are moving away from old favourites that had oak and big bold flavours? Obviously plenty still enjoy these flavour-packed styles, however as a global Sauvignon Blanc standard, not just within Marlborough, it is pleasing when refinement, quality and depth combine to give a perfect wine.’

‘There’s been lots of hype about the 2021 vintage,’ said Rebecca Palmer. ‘The gross generalisation is that because yields were down then quality was up, almost as if that’s a given. But the relationship between yield and quality isn’t linear. The growing season was stop-start, affected by frost then cool weather at flowering. And hang-time is crucial to the development of aroma and flavour.’

Brown agreed: ‘I do wonder whether this was a factor in the wines submitted here: far too many I’d describe as “decent enough” but lacking the personality and balance we might have hoped for in order to give more Highly recommendeds and Outstandings.’

Due to Covid restrictions, New Zealand only fully opened its borders on 31 July 2022, and has been partially or totally locked down since March 2020. This resulted in few container ships docking, meaning delays of more than three months to take stock out of the country, not to mention the cost hike.

But it is not all doom and gloom. The 2022 vintage is looking promising, shipping should become easier and NZ Sauvignon Blanc will remain a favourite, despite this temporary mid-life crisis. Until the 2022 vintage makes it on to retailer shelves and wine lists, Decanter readers have some excellent wines to try from this panel tasting, showcasing New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at its very best.

Top scoring New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

The judges

Roger Jones is the retired former owner of The Harrow at Little Bedwyn restaurant in Wiltshire. He is now a wine writer, judge and consultant with a particular interest in the hospitality trade, as well as helping charities. He is a DWWA judge, with a focus on New World regions.

Melanie Brown is founder and CEO of Heist Group, which includes New World-focused online wine merchant Specialist Cellars and The Laundry restaurant, Brixton. From New Zealand, she arrived in the UK in 2015 to work as a chef for the likes of Raymond Blanc, Peter Gordon and more.

Rebecca Palmer is associate director of Corney & Barrow, based in the UK, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. She heads up the commercial buying team, covering most world regions. At DWWA 2022 she judged in the New Zealand and USA & Central America categories.

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The Scapegrace team claims it will be New Zealand’s largest ever distillery when it is fully completed in October 2023.

It will eventually produce all of Scapegrace’s award-winning gins and vodkas, along with its soon-to-be-released single malt whisky. The company plans to expand into other spirits categories further down the line too.

Managing director Daniel McLaughlin said that the climate and water quality in Central Otago – which is famed for its Pinot Noir – make the region ideal for producing spirits.

‘The halfway point between equator and south pole runs directly through our distillery site, giving us extremes in hot and cold temperatures – an optimum environment for aging whisky,’ said McLaughlin.

‘Naturally, the pristine water quality is also ideal for distilling gin and vodka, pulling from glacial run-off from the Southern Alps.’

Scapegrace Distilling Company has secured a 36-hectare plot of land overlooking Lake Dunstan, with Mount Pisa and the Bendigo mountains providing a spectacular backdrop.

McLaughlin and brother-in-law Mark Neal founded Scapegrace back in 2014, along with Richard Bourke, after bonding over a shared love of gin.

It was initially known as Rogue Society. However, it ran into copyright issues when the brand expanded into Europe in 2017, as there is a brewery with a similar name on the continent, so it was rebranded as Scapegrace.

In 2019, the company hit headlines across the globe after producing the world’s first naturally black gin, which turns purple when mixed with tonic.

Until now, the spirits have been distilled under contract in a distillery located near the base of the Southern Alps, using pure glacial water that has been filtered through layers of sediment rock for 80 years before it is released into the depths of one of the world’s last natural aquifers.

The brand’s slogan is: “The reason that Scapegrace tastes clean is because it is.” It is exported to more than 40 countries, including the UK, Australia, USA, Canada, and various parts of Europe and Asia.

Scapegrace will now be able to produce its own spirits in-house at the distillery, which was designed by Auckland-based Cheshire Architects.

Construction has started on the first building, which will house the firm’s head office, a bottling hall, a warehouse and the first barrel room. It will open in August 2022.

The second building will be opened in October 2023. There will be a bar and restaurant, while visitors can enjoy distillery tours and visit nearby goldmines. The distillery will open to the public in November 2023.

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The deal includes 34.5ha under vine in the heart of the mountainous Bannockburn sub-region. It is mainly planted with Pinot Noir, but there are pockets of Chardonnay and Riesling too.

Sir Clifford Skeggs, a Kiwi businesmman, and Lady Marie Skeggs purchased the land for Akarua in 1995, and planting began the following year. The first wines were bottled from the 1999 vintage.

Akarua is now firmly established as one of the largest family-owned operations in Central Otago, and its 100% estate-grown wines have earned critical acclaim and a string of awards.

Edmond de Rothschild Heritage, which combines the investment group’s non-banking lifestyle assets, made its first foray into New Zealand a decade ago, when it purchased 24ha in Marlborough Valley to produce the Rimapere brand.

Group president Ariane de Rothschild asked the team to find the best terroir in New Zealand to add a Pinot Noir producer to its collection.

They naturally chose Central Otago, which is widely regarded as one of the world’s best Pinot Noir producing regions outside of Burgundy, along with Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

‘We focused our search on Central Otago, the other Pinot Noir region, with a view to pinpointing the best soil there,’ said managing director Boris Breau. ‘With Akarua, we are adding a renowned family-run winery for over 20 years to our portfolio.

‘Identified as one of the best terroirs of this emblematic grape variety, it still has strong growth potential, enabling us to complete our range and consolidate our position in premium wines.’

The acquisition is subject to a variety of conditions, including the need to obtain consent from New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office.

If it gains approval, Anne Escalle – who has served as technical director for Rimapere since 2019 – will take over operations on behalf of the group.

‘Central Otago, particularly Bannockburn, represents an ideal terroir for Pinot Noir thanks to its continental climate – rare for New Zealand – which is associated with a great deal of mineral complexity in the soil: loess over shale and sand,’ she said. ‘The Akarua vineyard is a unique site, nestled in the foothills of the mountains, offering more balanced conditions, which will undoubtedly allow our wine to grow into one of the finest Pinot Noirs.’

Ariane de Rothschild – the French banker who has run the group since 2019 – added that her late husband, Benjamin, drove the ‘exploration of far-flung destinations’ to seek out the finest terroirs.

‘In keeping with this development strategy, we are committed to untapping each vineyard’s potential to produce fine wines, with a focus on enhancing the local grape varieties,’ she said.

‘New Zealand, widely known for its excellent Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, is one of these high-potential terroirs. After Rimapere in 2012, we’re strengthening our commitment over the long term with Akarua.’

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Never likely to match the popularity of the country’s Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand Pinot Noir is nonetheless an undoubted success story.

Although the first vines were planted almost 140 years ago, in 1883, New Zealand Pinot Noir didn’t really find traction with either producers or consumers until more than a century later.

Today, with more than 5,800ha planted (all figures from New Zealand Winegrowers), it is the country’s top red grape variety by far, with approximately 14.5 million bottles exported in 2021.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of 20 marvellous New Zealand Pinot Noirs

It flourishes in New Zealand’s cool South Island regions of Central Otago, Marlborough, North Canterbury with smaller amounts in Nelson. Exciting wines are also being made in the North Island, notably Martinborough in the south, plus a few top producers in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne.

Thanks to this diversity of regions, climates and soils there is a broad range of styles, from rich, soft, dark wines with prominent oak and warm alcohol, to pale, lean, red-berried Pinots with brisk acidity and a firm structure.

The evolution of Central Otago

In the south of South Island, Central Otago used to be the home of big, oaky, black-fruited and extracted Pinots – which certainly got the region a loyal fanbase. But today more freshness and elegance is evident and the wines are far better balanced. That’s not to say that those overt, bold examples have disappeared – there are plenty of them – but the best wines strike a harmonious chord between ripeness and restraint: plush, silky and perfumed with a firm tannin structure.

There are six sub-regions in Central Otago, which collectively farm about 1,600ha of Pinot Noir. Gibbston Valley is the coolest and highest, delivering lighter but intensely spiced red-berried wines. Bannockburn by comparison is the warmest and driest, giving ripe, full-bodied, black cherry-driven Pinots, while Bendigo, enjoying big diurnal temperature differences on its stony soils, produces vibrant, aromatic styles.

Canterbury’s variety

Stretching 200km down the east coast, North Canterbury boasts alpine foothills and coastal plains, producing diverse Pinot Noirs from its 430ha of vines. The warm, dry, protected Waipara Valley sub-region is gaining the most acclaim, with a long growing season ensuring the spicy, earthy Pinots are expressive, layered and graceful, with good structure, freshness and definition.

Approachable Marlborough

At the top of South Island, Marlborough produces about half of New Zealand’s Pinot Noir, with 2,721ha under vine in 2021. Thanks to better understanding of clones and terroirs, the simple valley floor blends of two decades ago have been replaced by single-vineyard or sub-regional blends from the Awatere, Wairau and particularly Southern Valleys, whose wines are fuller-bodied.

Within their light- to midweight cherry-berry fruit spectrum, Marlborough Pinots have notable freshness and lifted aromas and, in recent years, producers have improved their structure, intensity and intricacy. Perhaps not yet as complex or ageworthy as Pinots from other New Zealand regions, they still offer great drinking pleasure in the short to medium term.

Martinborough’s perfect blend

In the south of North Island, Martinborough is a key sub-region of Wairarapa, with some 60% of the 1,100ha under vine, about half of it (300ha) Pinot Noir. Frequently compared to Burgundy due to its climate, soils and small family-run grower-winemaker estates, its Pinots are making big waves. Simplistically, the wines combine the fragrance and freshness of Marlborough with the succulent dark richness of Central Otago, and a complex, earthy, savoury quality all of their own.

While New Zealand offers a vast range of Pinot Noirs in all styles and prices, these 20 wines are a selection from 45 premium, UK-available wines, tasted non-blind at Decanter’s offices in February 2022.

See tasting notes and scores of 20 New Zealand premium Pinot Noirs

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New Zealand might once have been the land where Sauvignon Blanc reigned supreme, but Pinot Noir now stands proudly alongside the white flagship grape as the country’s leading red variety.

Explore the selection below and discover the revolution which, in the past ten years, has rescued New Zealand from red wine obscurity and placed it among the leading producers of one of the world’s fussiest, but most admired, grapes.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of 12 great value New Zealand Pinot Noir to try

A quiet revolution

New Zealand Pinot Noir carved its place on the world stage in a relative short period, due to a serendipitous combination of factors.

The first step was awareness of the country’s potential to produce world class Pinot. Winemakers and consumers, once focused exclusively on Sauvignon Blanc, realised there was more to explore.

This in turn attracted a vibrant community of young, risk-taking producers, keen to experiment with the different terroirs, clones and winemaking approaches. Many of them focused on low intervention and sustainable practices, consolidating an important Kiwi trend.

As existing vineyard plantings matured, the resulting fruit they yielded started to produce wines of greater complexity and longevity, giving winemakers more confidence in the quality and identity of their Pinot Noirs and their ability to rival international counterparts.

Cool climate hotspot

Pinot Noir is mostly grown in New Zealand’s southern regions – Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson, North Canterbury and Central Otago.

These areas benefit from a cool climate, high diurnal temperature variations and intense UV exposure, ensuring a long and balanced ripening season.

Central Otago has indeed been lauded as a ‘new Burgundy’, favoured by experts, sommeliers and sustainable wine fans for the elegance and expressiveness of its Pinots. The growing conditions in Central Otago are not dissimilar to those of Burgundy and Willamette Valley, Oregon.

Some benchmark examples of outstanding New Zealand Pinot Noir, such as those produced by Felton Road and Rippon, do command higher prices.

However there’s also outstanding value New Zealand Pinot Noir to be found, as the country produces wines of consistent quality across a variety of price points.

The diversity of microclimates and terroirs in New Zealand results in individual and expressive wines, but there is a common thread to them all: excellent fruit purity, fine yet firm structure, textural presence and a moreish spiciness.

Food pairings – elegantly versatile

The laidback poise and vibrancy of New Zealand Pinots makes them ideal food companions.

Flavour complexity, texture and delicious savouriness mean they can easily handle red meat and hearty stews. On the other hand, the fruit-forwardness and gentle, but refreshing, acidity will balance the richness of oily fish, the earthiness of roast chicken or the smokiness of grilled vegetables.

Lighter examples will benefit from being slightly chilled. Make space in your fridge – New Zealand Pinot may well become your new everyday drinking red of choice.

Value New Zealand Pinot Noir – 12 to try:

Wines shown in score order

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The world’s most southerly wine region, Central Otago covers a large area of diverse soils from broken schist and clays to heavy silt loams, gravels and light sands. Overlay that with a wide range of climatic conditionsand it is easy to understand why Central Otago produces such a diverse range of Pinot Noir styles.

The distinguishing features that make many Central Otago Pinot Noirs stand out from other regional styles are impressive fruit density and a silken texture. Some also boast a Central Otago signature of wild thyme – the herb was planted in the 1850s by gold miners and now covers the hills.

If you want to turn up the volume on fruit flavour, choose wines from the ‘three Bs’: Bannockburn, Bendigo and Cromwell Basin. If you prefer more vibrant and often edgier, high-energy wines, then try Pinot Noir from the cooler sub-regions of Wanaka, Gibbston or Alexandra.

Vintage makes a difference. 2017 saw a small harvest producing top wines. 2018 was the hottest vintage on record, producing many good wines. In contrast, 2019 was a wet vintage, with a good result. In 2020, expect ripe, concentrated wines with good acidities.

Price is a useful, though not infallible guide. More commercial, and cheaper, wines are likely to be a blend of vineyards, shipped in bulk to Europe and bottled. Handmade wines are often from a single organic vineyard, pruned and planted with quality in mind. You can taste the difference. The better, more expensive wines tend to be more ageworthy.

Good: Akarua, Rua Pinot Noir 2019 – 90 points

Better: Burn Cottage, Pinot Noir 2018 – 94 points

Best: Felton Road, Block 5 Pinot Noir 2017 – 100 points

Bob Campbell MW’s Central Otago Pinot Noir picks:

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Every year New Zealand Wines hosts its New Zealand in a Glass tasting in London where wines from across this diverse country are poured – from Central Otago in the south to Northland near the tip of the North Island.

For a time this was very much a two-wine showcase, with Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir strutting their stuff, and little else in between. In recent years, however, the breadth of the Kiwi offering has increased markedly, with big guns like Syrah and Chardonnay suddenly stealing some of the limelight, and lesser-known varieties (certainly for New Zealand) such as Grüner Veltliner and Cabernet Franc vying for attention.Tasting wines from across the spectrum at this year’s event, it’s striking how many previously fledgling varieties are now standing toe-to-toe with Sauvignon and Pinot.

Chardonnay is fast becoming a Kiwi benchmark and is made in myriad styles – from bright, crunchy and fresh to rich, opulent and creamy.

Syrah is widely planted and responsible for some of New Zealand’s most revered reds, but increasingly Bordeaux varietal wines and blends are getting a look in too.

More obscure grapes such as Lagrein and Tempranillo are popping up with increasing regularity and producing some noteworthy wines. The esoteric is ubiquitous, it would seem, even among perennial safe-players like New Zealand.

Chris Wilson’s top New Zealand picks

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New Zealand oaked Sauvignon Blanc: panel tasting results

New Zealand Pinot Noir wines to seek out

Loire vs Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc: Can you tell the difference?

Rebecca Gibb MW, Roger Jones and Philip Tuck MW tasted 53 New Zealand oaked Sauvignon Blancs, with 3 Outstanding and 18 Highly Recommended...

Entry criteria: Producers and UK agents were invited to submit their latest-release New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs produced using any level of barrel fermentation or maturation

Scroll down to see the tasting notes & scores

The verdict

With quality on display across the board, this tasting proved that New Zealand’s oaked styles of Sauvignon Blanc deserve attention. Rebecca Gibb MW shares the highlights…

Famed for its distinctive rainbow of flavours and its succulent acidity, Marlborough is the home of New Zealand Sauvignon, representing 89% of the country’s plantings, and its dominance was reflected in this tasting, accounting for three-quarters of entries.

While New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc has made its name in its pure, fruit-filled expression, there have long been barrel-influenced examples since Hunters wowed the crowds at the 1986 Sunday Times Wine Club with its Fumé Blanc.

However, oaked examples have remained a sideshow in the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc story. This tasting showed that the sideshow should be brought on to the main stage, with a very respectable average of 89.2 points scored across a field of more than 50 wines.

There were some sublime examples: Cloudy Bay’s Te Koko, Greywacke’s Wild Sauvignon and the least famous of the Oustanding triumvirate, te Pā’s Oke, which all offered wildly different stylistic interpretations of the relationship between Sauvignon Blanc and oak. But qualitatively, there were few disagreements: harmony, texture and complexity were the name of the game.

Quick link See all 53 wines in the panel tasting

Philip Tuck MW, wine director at Hatch Mansfield, explained: ‘This tasting was all about interplay of oak and varietal character and it’s easy to get it wrong. When you put Sauvignon Blanc in oak you are compromising the high aromatics. Getting it right is a challenge but when you do get it right it’s very nice. There were only a handful of wines that were overoaked.’

It is clear that the use of new oak currently plays a minor role in the most successful oak-influenced Sauvignon Blanc styles, with secondfill or older barrels chosen for their contribution to texture rather than flavour. Barrel fermentation followed by maturation tends to produce a more harmonious expression – a method common to many of the finest wines in the tasting.

However, the varying approaches reflected the flexibility of New World winemaking: levels of oak ranged from 2.5% to 100%, and new oak proportions from zero to 100%.

There were just three wines that took a leaf out of the Bordeaux (and Margaret River) book, blending Semillon with the Sauvignon Blanc: Te Mata’s Cape Crest, Seresin’s Marama and Hans Herzog’s Sur Lie included a small splash of the rich, weighty variety. But the panel was united in its belief that this pairing could be worth exploring as New Zealand moves into Sauvignon Blanc 2.0.

Tuck noted: ‘I’m surprised there were no more with Semillon in the blend – why not add some?’ But who’s going to buy these top-rated wines?

Wearing his restaurateur’s hat, Roger Jones of the The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, commented: ‘Selling wines over the bar, people want clean Sauvignon Blanc, but if it’s got oak and complexity they are lost. You really need to focus on it and have it with food, which is not what New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is necessarily known for.’

With his business hat on, Tuck added: ‘Commercially it’s a risk. The winemakers are adding cost to the wines because they are releasing them later.’

These styles are not destined to be New Zealand’s bread and butter, but for restaurants and interested consumers looking for the next stage in their Sauvignon Blanc experience, there is a diverse array of aromatics and textures on offer.

The scores

53 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 3

Highly Recommended 18

Recommended 30

Commended 2

Fair 0

Poor 0

Faulty 0

Top New Zealand oaked Sauvignon Blancs from the panel tasting:

See all 53 wines from this panel tasting

About New Zealand oaked Sauvignon Blanc

New Zealand oaked Sauvignon Blanc While its claim to fame may be fresh and fruity Sauvignon, New Zealand’s winemakers are now experimenting with more varied and nuanced styles. Rebecca Gibb MW reports

If you think New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc can only be fashioned in one style it’s time to taste the country’s leading variety in its increasingly varied interpretations. The fruity yet green style for which the country has become world famous is still a mainstay, but winemakers are now seeking to make Sauvignon Blanc that is less reliant on primary fruit aromas and more interesting texturally.

Sauvignon Blanc producers are achieving a sophisticated, savoury alternative using a variety of methods, which include allowing wild yeast to do its job on rather cloudy juice in tank, French oak barrel or both. There’s also a small but significant number of high-quality producers playing with foudres and the odd amphora. Sacred Hill and Cloudy Bay were early adopters of barrel fermentation in the 1990s but as Tim Heath, senior winemaker at Cloudy Bay, explains: ‘Barrel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc styles are not as easy to make as you think and can easily become overblown. It becomes quite disjointed with oak and overpowers the fruit. It’s a difficult balance to strike.’ Indeed, the natural fruitiness of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc can be difficult to tame, which can lead to a wrestling match between the grape and the wood.

Subtle expression

Experience and research has shown that picking Sauvignon Blanc by hand, rather than machine harvesting, followed by whole bunch pressing diminishes the level of thiols responsible for the exuberant aromatics reminiscent of passionfruit and herbaceous boxwood. A more subtle Sauvignon expression better integrates with oak – when oak, and particularly new oak, is only one part of the fermentation story: Auntsfield, for example combines conventionally fermented tank parcels with barrel-fermented whole bunch lots to achieve harmony in its single-vineyard Sauvignon Blanc. What’s more, allowing partial malolactic fermentation can also reduce the flamboyancy of fruit – Greywacke allows two-thirds of its highly successful Wild Sauvignon to undergo conversion – but it’s a fine balancing act. Lees stirring also adds an extra dimension to Sauvignon Blanc as we know it, contributing weight, texture and more complex layers.

In the world of Sauvignon, Marlborough unoaked Sauvignon Blancs are inimitable. The barrel-fermented styles are idiosyncratic too: they’re not as razor fine as those of Sancerre, but look positively vibrant next to a Californian Fumé Blanc. While they share a similar weight to Bordeaux whites, New Zealand Sauvignon tends to offer more tropical fruit and lacks the textural, grassy elements that Semillon brings to Bordeaux blends.

Increasingly sophisticated Sauvignon Blanc is emerging from the bottom of the earth. If you thought you knew New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and have previously dismissed it for being overly fruity, perhaps it’s time to think again and try some of the alternative styles that Kiwi winemakers are now dishing up.

NZ Sauvignon Blanc: The Facts

1975 First Sauvignon Blanc planted in Marlborough

1979 First Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc produced by Montana

2002 Sauvignon Blanc becomes New Zealand’s most planted variety

2018 Sauvignon Blanc covers 23,102ha, representing 60% of New Zealand’s vineyard area and 86% of exports

(Source: NZ Winegrowers Annual Report 2018)

NZ Sauvignon Blanc: Know your vintages

2018 Hottest summer on record, leading to early ripening. Coastal regions affected by ex-tropical cylones in February, delaying harvest and elevating botrytis pressure. Ripe Sauvignon.

2017 Difficult season with a cool start and poor summer. Wet, warm and cloudy autumn created botrytis pressure. Early picked crops were the most successful.

2016 Record crop. Warm, often humid. Harvest period was dry and sunny. Excellent whites and highly attractive reds.

2015 Dry and warm. Small, low yielding crop after early frost and cool flowering. Ripe, perfumed and fully flavoured wines.

2014 Record early vintage. Dry and warm summer with little disease pressure. Excellent wines across the board.

2013 Touted as the vintage of a lifetime with a warm, incredibly dry summer and autumn. Ripe, concentrated wines across the North and South Islands.

See all of the wines tasted here

The judges

Rebecca Gibb MW

Gibb spent six years living in New Zealand, where she became a Master of Wine, graduating top of her class and winning the Madame Bollinger medal for excellence in tasting. Her first book The Wines of New Zealand was published in 2018. She also runs wine events and has a consultancy business The Drinks Project.

Roger Jones

Jones and his wife Sue own The Harrow at Little Bedwyn restaurant, where he combines chef duties with a love of wine. Jones frequently travels to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, food and wine matching; he set up The Tri Nations Wine Challenges to promote wines from these countries.

Philip Tuck MW

Philip Tuck MW has been in the wine trade for over 30 years, since joining Avery’s in Bristol in 1986. He then worked for wineries in various countries including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the US, Chile and Italy. Tuck became an MW in 1999 and is currently wine director at Hatch Mansfield.

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If Forrest Gump had preferred wine to running, he might have said ‘Central Otago seasons are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’.

From one year to the next, locals have come to expect the unexpected, from scorching temperatures in spring to snow in summer – and the 2017 vintage offered its own peculiarities.It was a cool start to the spring and summer, with poor flowering leading to small berries and millerandage (inconsistent bunch development).This resulted in lower bunch weights, so the final crop was around 10-15% smaller than normal – whatever normal is in Central Otago!

Pete Bartle of Vinpro, a contract winemaking facility for a number of well-known brands in Central Otago including Wooing Tree, Grasshopper Rock and Archangel, says: ‘2017 was one of those years where you worry about job security – I thought we would run out of season [and have no fruit]!

‘It had been so cold – normally you get some early heat in Central and we didn’t have any. We went into February and it was dragging. In warmer seasons we have the [bird] nets on in the first week of February, but on this occasion it was well into February.’

In Alexandra, the team at Grasshopper Rock thinned the crop in January due to concerns there wouldn’t be enough heat to ripen the fruit on the vine.

Managing director Phil Handford says: ‘It was one of the coldest vintages on record but in late February we started to get the heat we needed and we ended up picking at the same time as we had in 2016, because of the smaller crop load.’

As a result of the season’s small berries there was a high skin-to-juice ratio, imbuing the wines with deeper hues and higher tannin levels. Stems were not in favour in 2017 fermentation tanks, as there was a higher proportion of stems to the smaller than usual grapes.

Matt Dicey, winemaker at Mount Difficulty, says: ‘We used less whole-bunch in 2017 because we didn’t think there was as much ripeness in the phenolics.

‘Slightly lower pH and higher acidity is part and parcel of 2017, so the tannins could be assertive and we didn’t want to extract too much.’

The resulting wines are distinctive and characterful – fresh, fragrant and fruity, with common themes of raspberries, blackberries and violets. There’s a brightness to this vintage and a sense of tension not seen in warmer years.

It’s also encouraging to see ripe tannins despite the cooler season, and greater integration of oak. Dicey adds: ‘As the vines age we see more natural tannin coming from the seeds and skins – we don’t need to work hard to look for it.

‘The vein of fruit sits underneath it but there’s texture and complexity coming through. It’s a less-is-more philosophy and we are pushing new boundaries.’

Central Otago Pinot Noir 2017 top picks:

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Decanter's Tina Gellie picks your next New Zealand Pinots to try...

Pinot Noir grows at its best in cooler climates – think Burgundy and Champagne – which is why it fares well in New Zealand, especially in regions such as Marlborough and Central Otago.

New Zealand has developed a reputation for the quality of its Pinot Noir in recent years, and they can offer great value for money compared to the old world competition, typically offering a fragrant aroma with flavours of cherry, raspberry and brambles.

The following wines showcase some top picks for drinking in 2019 and beyond, from the full-bodied, rich expressions of Central Otago to the weighty concentration of Martinborough and the balanced elegance of Marlborough.

See also: Why you need to think again about New Zealand wine

Rebecca Gibb MW says ‘there’s plenty to be excited about… from Martinborough and Central Otago in particular,’ in her New Zealand 2016 reds vintage report.

New Zealand Pinot Noir wines to seek out:

See also:

A wine lover’s guide to Hawke’s Bay

New Zealand whites: 2018 vintage report

Top New Zealand Pinot Noirs for your cellar

California’s Foley Family Wines has been cleared by officials in New Zealand to buy Pinot Noir producer Mt Difficulty for around US$35 million.

New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office (OIO) said it has approved Foley’s purchase of Mt Difficulty for NZ$52m (US$35m).

The deal includes 70ha of freehold land and 110ha of leasehold land in Central Otago.

California-based Foley Family Wines is majority owned by Bill Foley and his wife, Carol, and already has several New Zealand wine interests. The group also bought Diageo’s Chalone Estate Vineyard in California in 2016, while Bill Foley owns the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team.

Mt Difficulty offers a major foothold in Central Otago, a key region for premium Pinot Noir.

The producer is particularly known for its Pinot Noir, including single vineyard bottlings, and its Roaring Meg label, which includes Pinot Noir and Gris, Riesling, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

OIO officials said that they spent eight-and-a-half months considering the Foley acquisition plan. It said that the firm was required to make changes to some of its proposals, but did not specify what.

It added that Foley plans to expand the Mt Difficulty restaurant and cellar door, and will seek to expand exports of Mt Difficulty wines.

Separately, the OIO said that Foley intended to expand its existing Te Kairanga estate in Martinborough and expand production capacity at its Grove Mill winery in Marlborough.

Thanks to one of the hottest summers in New Zealand's history, there is a clear vintage expression across both the reds and whites from 2018 says Rebecca Gibb MW, who reports on the weather conditions across the country and selects her top white wines from recent tastings…

Triathletes clad in neoprene return to the open waters of New Zealand’s coast each November donning a couple of swimming hats to avoid ice-cream headaches, but in late 2017 the waters were so unseasonably warm even the wetsuits could be comfortably ditched in favour of a pair of budgie smugglers.

Scroll down for Rebecca Gibb MW’s top New Zealand white wines from 2018

It wasn’t the swimmers’ imagination. A so-called marine heatwave meant that water temperatures were between 2 and 4°C above average and this was the main driver behind the hottest summer in New Zealand since records began in 1909. Temperatures across New Zealand were 2.1˚C higher than the 30-year average (1981-2010), pushing the balmy summer of 1934/35 out of the record books. The heatwave began in November, which is not technically summer in New Zealand. In Central Otago’s Cromwell, there were 23 consecutive days above 25˚C up to 10 December.

And the crazy barbecue weather kept on coming. Hot and dry weather – Auckland received just 9% of its average rainfall in December – meant vines successfully flowered and there was an abundant crop ready to ripen early: on the eve of 2018, the vines were tracking 10-14 days ahead of their ‘usual’ schedule.

But weather can be unpredictable when you’re a remote island at the bottom of the world and February brought the remnants of two tropical cyclones. The first, named Fehi (1 February), broke the heatwave. Felton Road’s owner Nigel Greening says: ‘2018 was bewildering: if we had not had the cyclone come through and break the heatwave, we would have been in deep [trouble].’

That said, many Central Otago growers report it was their earliest-ever harvest. Amisfield picked its Riesling on 5 March – three weeks earlier than normal. Winemaker Stephanie Lambert says: ‘2018 epitomised Central Otago’s unpredictability more than ever. It was hot, it was cold, we were worried about sunburn, lack of sun, lack of wine, low acidity, disease, lack of flavour, it had it all for us.’

Meanwhile, cyclone Gita (20 February) dropped 300% of the South Island’s monthly rainfall in just 18 hours. While the North Island’s wine regions of Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne and Wairarapa dodged the worst of Gita’s wrath, the country’s most prolific region, Marlborough, was affected. For the early ripeners this caused a few headaches but the Sauvignon Blanc berries were still tough at this stage.

Vintners were on high alert for botrytis with high humidity and the February deluge. Picking was delayed until March but the temperatures remained high: the average temperature in Marlborough in March was 22.3˚C compared with 16.3˚C in March 2017. Nights were unseasonably warm.

The cyclones also affected the crop level. At 419,000 tonnes, 2018 is the fourth-largest harvest on record but it is well below initial expectations. In the glass, you can expect Sauvignon Blancs with ripe flavour expression, broader palate weight, gentler acidity and immediate accessibility. Vintners report that Pinot Noir is flavoursome and lush with lower acidity and alcohols nudging 14% and beyond.

Will it be a great year? It is difficult to say at this early stage but they will show a clear vintage expression when compared with the far cooler 2017 season.

Rebecca Gibb MW’s top New Zealand white wines from 2018

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At Felton Road's 21st anniversary tasting in London, Rebecca Gibb MW found out how its biodynamic Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines have evolved over time...

The past two decades at Felton Road are a microcosm of Central Otago and the wider New Zealand wine scene. 

The vines have matured along with their guardians, making increasingly sophisticated wine – that’s why the anniversary vertical tasting did not trace its roots all the way to 1997.

‘By starting with 2005, we are able to show a reasonable amount of vine age and 2005 was our first full year of biodynamics,’ explained Greening. 

As the tasting crossed different vintages and Bannockburn sites, covering its five Pinot Noirs and Chardonnay trio, Felton Road’s seasons were recounted in the glass — from the cool 2005 harvest and the warmer conditions of 2008, through to the ‘extremely erratic’ year of 2017.

Having ploughed their attention into the vineyard in the noughties, the vines are reportedly better behaved, which has enabled a more minimalist approach in the winery.

While Felton’s use of oak has never been out of kilter, like many other New Zealand producers, its vine age means the grapes have naturally ripe tannins and recent wines appear to require less new oak to provide structure.

Vintage highlights

A sense of balance, purity and increasing delicacy has emerged across the range. Despite vintage variations, tasting seven of its Block 3 Pinot Noir showed clear site expression in its seductive style.

While 2010 and 2012 have been much lauded, the region has had an impressive run of vintages. Since 2012 there’s been ‘no excuse’ for wines that are anything less than excellent, according to Greening. 

The 2011 vintage has suffered middle child syndrome but at this tasting, Block 5 was intriguing and tautly wound.

Similarly, the stellar 2012 harvest means the 2013 vintage is sometimes overlooked in Central Otago, but once again Block 5 showed its class: it is wonderfully fragrant, vibrant and – most importantly – delicious to drink.

Although Central Otago is known as a Pinot Noir producer with a little Riesling on the side, around 3% of its majestic landscape is home to Chardonnay vines.

Felton Road is perhaps its most renowned maker, crafting very low intervention cuvées, including the not-so sexily entitled Blocks 2 and 6. 

Perhaps most surprising was the 2007: it was not as refined as later examples but it was still not yet fully mature.  Could it be the screwcaps? Central Otago may be awash with pesky rabbits, but this is a premox-free zone.

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One of the most southerly wine regions on the planet, New Zealand’s Central Otago is home to dramatic scenery and elegant Pinot Noir. Anne Krebiehl MW takes us on a tour and highlights the producers and wines you need to know...

‘We are the driest, we are the coldest, we are the hottest. There is something striking and extreme about the climate here.’

This is how winemaker Lucie Lawrence describes Central Otago. She is right. Everything about this remote region is intense: its stark beauty of jagged peaks, naked rock, crystalline sky and the turquoise of deep, glacier-fed lakes.

Everything seems heightened, the freshness of the air, the fierceness of the sun, the heart- stopping briskness of the cold water.

Scroll down for Krebiehl’s pick of Central Otago

‘All of those things make our Pinots what they are and work for other varieties, too,’ says Lawrence, who runs Aurum Wines in Lowburn with her husband Brook. It is these extremes that put Central Otago Pinot Noir on the map.Today, however, they are channelled into poise and a stylistic shift is in full swing.The rise of Central Otago as a wine region is as extraordinary as its landscape. Barely 20ha of vineyards in 1990 grew to 280ha by 2000 and to 1,921ha today.Of that total, 1,500ha is Pinot Noir – that’s 79%. ‘I am blown away,’ says Alan Brady of Gibbston Valley Winery, who planted the first commercial vineyard in Gibbston Valley in 1983. ‘We’ve grown a lot in a very short time,’ he adds.

Pinot country

For Brady, Central Otago and Pinot Noir have gone hand in hand. ‘We were very lucky that one of the first varieties we planted experimentally was Pinot Noir. It put its hand up from year one almost. It grew easily and when it started producing fruit, it ripened more consistently than almost anything else. So it’s nothing to do with our wisdom or insight. It was just that Pinot Noir indicated that it found a home here – that was our good fortune,’ he notes. In soils of deep silty loams, alluvial gravels, schist, quartz, sand, clay and loess, cultivating Pinot meant hard work and a steep learning curve.

At times it also demanded nerves of steel, in this semi-continental climate that is a hub for skiing in winter and watersports in summer. High diurnal swings and vintage variation are a given. ‘There have been no two vintages I’ve worked here that have been even remotely similar,’ explains Paul Pujol, winemaker at Prophet’s Rock in Bendigo. ‘With time you get more relaxed about that. When I first got here it snowed in the vineyard as vines were just coming into flowering. But despite cold spells and heatwaves we are able to successfully ripen Pinot in all of these vintages, even with seasons that are dramatically different.’

Central Otago at a glance

Location In the south of New Zealand’s South Island, Central Otago is one of the world’s most southerly wine regions. Its main population hubs are Queenstown, Wanaka and Cromwell

Sub-regions Wanaka, Bannockburn, Gibbston Valley, Alexandra, Bendigo and Cromwell/ Lowburn/Pisa

Coming of age

By the turn of the millennium, Pinot Noir had almost become the subject of Central Otago’s second gold rush. Lots of investment flooded in, then ended in 2008 with the global financial crisis. For Rudi Bauer, viticultural veteran, biodynamic pioneer and winemaker at Quartz Reef in Bendigo, this abrupt halt to plantings represented a great opportunity. ‘It meant that the average age of vineyards finally grew, instead of getting younger and younger. Today people have established vineyards where they get real site expression.’ Looking back he notes a distinct shift in perspective: ‘Now that we have a sense of maturity we no longer need to be loud. Now winemakers are as humble as the viticulturists always were. They listen to the vine.’

The best among them know how to farm in order to channel Central Otago’s undoubted ripeness into brilliance: ‘I grew up here, eating plums, nectarines, peaches, with the juice running down my arms,’ recalls Andrew Donaldson, owner of Akitu in Wanaka. ‘You can’t ignore fruit in Central Otago and you shouldn’t, but you cannot make huge fruit bombs. What you want is subtle, elegant.’

Francis Hutt, winemaker at Carrick Wines in Bannockburn, comments: ‘I am now seeing earlier picking, more finesse. We are no longer trying to prove to the world that our wines can age – we know that they do. So we can relax a little in our extraction. I can see more elegance with less time on skins, less new oak and fewer punch-downs.’

Lawrence of Aurum continues: ‘We are all evolving our style. Our understanding and connection to the land is deepening. There are no massive changes, just gentle evolution.’ Peter Bartle, who makes wines for numerous clients at Central Otago’s custom crush facility VinPro agrees. ‘When it comes to Pinot Noir we are certainly using a lot less new oak and while I’ve always preferred picking early, now that’s the norm,’ he says. But Bartle also calls out on Central Otago’s other grapes: ‘Riesling is just amazing – lots of citrus – and Chardonnay is starting to do very well in Central Otago.’ He also talks about an evolution of dry, textured Pinot Noir rosés.

Site selection

With so much focus on understanding sites, the distinct sub-regionality of Central Otago has also become clear: Gibbston Valley, Bannockburn, Alexandra, Bendigo, Wanaka and Cromwell/Pisa/Lowburn are all distinct in terms of climate, aspect, altitude and exposure. Gibbston Valley along the Kawarau River is the coolest and highest; while Bannockburn, Bendigo and Alexandra are the warmest. Altitude also comes into play, with north- facing hillsides exploited for their sunshine and ventilation.

‘In the early days we thought Central Otago was one region, but as we started seeing fruit from these different vineyards we realised it’s a number of different sub-regions. As a winemaker it’s lovely seeing that, it’s exciting,’ says Grant Taylor of Valli Vineyards, who has made wine in Central Otago since the 1980s and was among the first to draw attention to the sub-regions with his separate bottlings from Bannockburn and Gibbston Valley.

Some winemakers, such as Blair Walter of Felton Road, would like to formalise this sooner rather than later. ‘The winemakers of Bannockburn are certainly interested to pursue an application for a GI [Geographical Indication] for the sub-region. We think we owe it to our customers and businesses to define the sub-regions and where they start and stop,’ Walter explains. ‘I think we are at the appropriate moment now, especially for a sub-region like Bannockburn where the boundaries are relatively easy to define. Some of the other sub-regions are also easy, others will be a bit trickier.’

Contentious as any mapping always is, it surely is just another stage in Central Otago’s development. Taylor sums the situation up: ‘It’s always been changing. I like what’s happening: more people coming here, taking the wine to a wider market. But it’s still an evolving region, which makes it interesting, seeing it grow, develop and change – and that is still going on.’

Cental Otago: six names to know

Rippon

The Mills family, owners of a sheep station on the poor schist soils of Wanaka, were pioneers of Central Otago viticulture. What began with a few rows of vines in 1975, led to the first commercial vintage in 1989. Their 1990 vintage, made by a young Rudi Bauer (now Quartz Reef), lured the Dicey brothers of Ceres Wines and Blair Walter, winemaker at Felton Road, to Central Otago. The vineyards are farmed biodynamically. Older Rippon vintages are spectacular.

Ceres Wines

This is the family project of Matt and James Dicey, who until recently were winemaker and viticulturist, respectively, for Mt Difficulty, where they’d worked since the 1990s. Here they’re able to focus on single sites in Bannockburn and have dialled extraction and oak right back to make expressive, elegant wines.

Lowburn Ferry

This estate has recently come under the ownership of Smith & Sheth, a new project by Kiwi Steve Smith MW, co-founder of Craggy Range, and US billionaire investor Brian Sheth. With proper funding, especially into the vineyards and conversion to biodynamic farming under star viticulturist, Nick Paulin, this is set to blossom.

Akitu

Planted in 2002 at an elevation of 380m in Wanaka, these vineyards are marginal. But you know that all the frost risk is worth it when you taste the wines. After a career in investment management, founder Andrew Donaldson waited 10 years after planting before launching his Akitu label in 2012. ‘I’m from Otago and always needed to return,’ he says. ‘I was just lucky, I guess, that it became one of the most interesting places in the world to grow Pinot, my favourite variety.’

Mount Edward

Winemaker Duncan Forsyth has been pushing boundaries for a while. His flair for Pinot Noir is well known; his mastery of Riesling is evident. He continues to fine-tune both: there is more whole bunch in the Pinot while Riesling gets more skin contact. He’s also now having fun with sulphur-free Gamay, pet-nat Albariño and orange wines. Recently he’s also dabbled with vermouth, based on Riesling and Chenin Blanc, with elderflower as the primary botanical.

Burn Cottage

This biodynamic venture in the Pisa Range, owned by the Sauvage family from Kansas, has Pinot legend Ted Lemon from California as its consultant. First planted in 2003, the wines are now made by Claire Mulholland. ‘The vines are now well established and have been showing wonderful individual block characters over the years,’ she says. She’s excited about a new site, christened Burn Cottage Sauvage Vineyard. ‘It’s a 5.8ha Pinot Noir vineyard along Felton Road. We’ve started biodynamic practices already and envisage the possibility of making a single- vineyard Pinot from there.’

See Krebiehl’s pick of Central Otago

Anne Krebiehl MW is a freelance wine writer, educator, consultant and judge

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‘The speed of change in New Zealand wine leaves me breathless,’ writes Elin McCoy after visiting the country for tastings earlier this year.

Just before the annual Central Otago Pinot Noir festival in January, I was dutifully working my way through an Air New Zealand tasting in a boring hotel conference room in Queenstown, when I was bowled over by a sparkling wine I’d never heard of before.

The non-vintage No1 Family Estate, Reserve from Marlborough had the fresh, complex, salty, biscuity-rich finesse you find only in Champagne – and very good Champagne at that.

The experience reminded me how much pleasure I get from an unexpected wine discovery, and how many surprises New Zealand always seems to deliver.

These start with the country itself, a place where you feel you can glimpse the planet’s beginnings in landscapes heaved up by earthquakes and scoured by glaciers.

Vines hug slopes of steep, jagged peaks, sit above long shining lakes and ocean coves, and lie next to deep rocky gorges with rushing water so clear you feel recharged just looking at it. The sky, with its intense, clear light and ever-changing swirls of clouds, looks washed by wind from far, far away.

It all leaves you a little breathless, as does the surprising speed with which the wine industry has changed and grown since my last visit to New Zealand in 2009.

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I caught up with the maker of the No1 Reserve, Daniel Le Brun, at a sparkling wine brunch in Marlborough later in my trip. A native of Champagne (where his family had made Champagne for generations), Le Brun arrived in Blenheim in 1978, well before the region surprised the world with its new-style Sauvignon Blanc.

Within two hours, so he says, he was convinced he could make sparkling wine there. He’d trained with his father and grandfather in Champagne, and, he chuckles, ‘I was the renegade, the first to leave since 1642’.

New Zealand’s pioneer of making solely ‘traditional method’ cuvées learned to adapt to the country’s climate while keeping Champagne yeasts and ‘other technique secrets’. His first winery, which still bears his name, was sold in a complicated takeover in 1996; his first cuvée under the No1 Family Estate label debuted three years later.

An impromptu sampling – ranging from the quality, elegance and layered chalky crispness of the basic No1 cuvée, to a fragrant rosé, to the 2009 special cuvées Virginie (named for his daughter) and Adele (his wife) – showed the region’s potential for great sparkling wine.

Elsewhere, the number of fascinating whites carried me beyond the country’s signature grassy Sauvignon Blanc to Albarinos, Gruner Veltliners, and a salty Pegasus Bay Sauvignon/Semillon whose pairing with foraged, yellow-eyed mullet was one of the best of my stay.

Naturally, I discovered some great Pinot Noir producers. In Martinborough, I was wowed by multiple vintages of pure, intense, savoury Pinots made by the extraordinary Japanese diplomat-turned-winemaker Hiro Kusuda. Their hallmarks are precision and elegance, also found in his luminous Rieslings and spicy, seductive Syrahs.

Just north of Christchurch (still recovering from the 2016 earthquake), in North Canterbury, I went truffle hunting, learning that there are 50 truffle producers in the country.

But the wine surprise was the blindingly white pure limestone I saw in Bell Hill winery’s vineyards. Once a farm with an old quarry, it’s now a New Zealand version of a tiny Burgundian domaine, where Sherwyn Veldhuizen and Marcel Giesen make some of the most prized Pinot Noirs in the country.

There’s always a frisson of enthusiasm when new wines challenge my previous assumptions. Sadly, many wine drinkers prefer to stick to the same old regions and grapes.

Large commercial wineries use focus groups to tailor their products because so many consumers feel the way my aunt does about Kendall-Jackson’s Vintners Reserve Chardonnay: she wants to know exactly what tastes she’ll get in her glass.

But wines that comfort through familiarity amount to an already known universe. Been there, tasted that. Welcoming surprise means being open to savouring the future. And in New Zealand that looks very, very exciting.

Elin McCoy is an award-winning journalist and author who writes for Bloomberg News

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New Zealand 2016: A record crop. Warm and often humid. Harvest period was dry and sunny. Excellent whites and highly attractive reds

3/5

It’s all about Pinot Noir, and a small amount of Syrah, when it comes to the 2016 reds that have been released thus far.Many of the top Bordeaux reds and Syrahs have not yet reached the international marketplace, and proof is not yet in the glass.However, there’s plenty to be excited about when it comes to Pinot Noir, from Martinborough and Central Otago in particular. You know it’s been an early vintage when the coolest subregion in Central Otago – Gibbston – is picked in April with all the leaves still on the vine. It was a warm and dry season, giving full-flavoured Pinot Noirs that are fully ripe, with elegant, mouthcoating tannins.

The Syrahs are fragrant, fleshy and fresh, with fine acidity.

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Rebecca Gibb MW takes a closer look at a challenging 2017 vintage in New Zealand and picks out 15 whites to try, from Sauvignon Blanc to Riesling and Chenin.

New Zealand 2017: A very difficult season with a cool start, poor summer and wet, warm and cloudy autumn bringing high botrytis pressure. Those who picked early were most successful. Central Otago escaped the worst of the unsettled weather, although it was a very small crop.

2/5

This is ‘Sauvignon Blanc with the volume turned down’

While New Zealand’s 2017 harvest was the third largest crop on record, it was much smaller than anticipated – blame the heavens, which dumped their watery loads at all the wrong times.Just as Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was ripening on the vine, Debbie and Cook – two ex-tropical cyclones – descended on New Zealand on 4-5 and 12-13 April respectively, turning green grapes brown.

For varieties that had ripened before the April rains arrived, including Chardonnay, there were more reasons to be positive. However, during the critical ripening period, the country experienced low sunshine hours which, when combined with the wetter conditions, resulted in less flamboyant Sauvignon flavours, less concentration, modest alcohol levels and crisp acidity. In short, 2017 produced Sauvignon Blanc with the volume turned down.

Despite the iffy weather, there are still many attractive whites that will offer plenty of enjoyment from youth to the medium term. While some of the more commercial producers are already moving to the 2018 vintage, some of the most interesting barrel-fermented whites from 2017 are yet to emerge from the slumber of the cellar, and the full story of the vintage remains an open chapter.

A tale of two islands

On the North Island, particularly in the Auckland area, many battles with rain and rot were lost. Destiny Bay on Waiheke Island did not pick a single grape, and many flagship reds in the northern reaches of New Zealand became rosés.

At the southerly reaches of New Zealand, encirled by mountain peaks, Central Otago dodged the worst of the wet weather in late summer and autumn, but it was nevertheless a cool and windy growing season that led to small crops and a later harvest. The region’s Pinot Noirs are yet to be released, but both the Chardonnays and Rieslings are pristine and vibrant.

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The success of New Zealand wine has relied heavily on one variety that’s best consumed young for its flamboyant fruit and youthful vigour.

Sauvignon Blanc has been both a blessing and a curse, placing New Zealand firmly on the world wine map but also strengthening the perception that New Zealand wines are not ageworthy.

This perception, however, is a misconception that needs to be detonated.

Scroll down to see the wines

It’s increasingly apparent that Sauvignon Blanc – which makes up 72% of the country’s wine production – does not need to be ‘picked, pressed and pissed before Christmas’, as some of the cruder winemakers used to joke. The finer examples of the varietal can be cellared for five years or more.New Zealand’s best reds – from Pinot Noir to Cabernet Sauvignon – also have the components to be able to age gracefully: concentration of fruit, natural acidity, ripeness of tannin and a splash of ‘je ne sais quoi’.

Recent tastings of older vintages have shown that many producers have underestimated the drinking windows of their wines and, in future, will have to rewrite their back-label blurbs with the advice: ‘will drink beautifully for a decade or more.’

The rapid evolution of New Zealand’s wine scene has made it difficult to confidently predict the longevity of its wines, as there aren’t decades of vintages to use as a yardstick. The majority of New Zealand’s vines were planted after 2000. As a result, many vineyards have only recently attained a level of maturity that is considered conducive to making fine, ageworthy wines.

The evolution of New Zealand’s vineyard area:

Year / Total plantings (ha)

2000 10,197

2005 21,002

2010 33,200

2017 37,129

Nigel Greening of Central Otago’s Felton Road, which was founded in 1992, explains: ‘While there will be a few examples of mature wines from mature vines, they will be rare. The point here is that the way mature wines show now will not be any indication of the future, or the norm for that future. ‘

In the past decade, while young vines have matured, viticulture has improved dramatically and winemakers have gained a better understanding of their sites, allowing them to refine their techniques.

While there are a small number of mature wines today that were produced from mature vines in the early noughties – notably from Martinborough and Hawke’s Bay – New Zealand continues to break new ground with every harvest.

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Poets, painters and a certain Lord of the Rings trilogy film crew have all been drawn to the epic alpine landscapes of Central Otago on New Zealand's South Island, says Jo Burzynska. But here are the best places to go in the area for wine lovers...

Central Otago travel guide for wine lovers

While the artists sought inspiration in the region’s lofty peaks, its wine producers have found theirs in the schistous lower slopes that have proved an ideal place to make pure-fruited expressions of Pinot Noir.

Many visits to the world’s southernmost wine region start in Queenstown, a picturesque settlement on the banks of the large glacial Lake Wakitipu that faces the rugged Remarkables mountain range. Cromwell, less than an hour’s drive further inland, may be the more central wine town, but it’s Queenstown that boasts not only the views but the hotels and restaurants that have made it Central Otago’s tourist hub.

A new favourite is the Sherwood which offers both fine accommodation and a restaurant serving great local fare – including one of the most interesting wine selections in the South Island.

Follow the direction of the Kawarau River east, and in less 30 minutes’ drive you enter wine country with its promise of both thrilling bottles and spectacular scenery. It’s a terrain in which the natural beauty of the mountains, deep gorges and fast-flowing rivers is juxtaposed with the intrigue of man-made endeavours: from the vineyards that cling to its hillsides to the sluicings that carve into them as a reminder of the region’s gold rush in the 1860s.

‘Central’, as it’s called by locals, is a place of dramatic contrasts, which extends to its weather too. In winter its steep inclines are blanketed by snow, attracting an influx of skiers that keeps it buzzing and accessible in the colder months.

Its summers can be scorching, with a dry heat that draws out the aromas of the thyme that grows wild here and whose perfume can sometimes be detected in the region’s wines.

For one of the most stunning vineyard vistas in the region – if not the world – head to Rippon, whose vines spill down a hillside to Lake Wanaka, overlooked by craggy peaks. Rippon’s biodynamic wines are as awe-inspiring as its location, and are shaped by a rare second generation of winegrowers in this youthful wine region.

Central Otago largely remains populated by such small producers, the best of whom tread their own paths despite the popularity of the region’s wines.

Make an appointment to visit Mount Edward’s quirky cellar door for another distinctive approach, where the wines may well be poured by the winemaker-proprietor Duncan Forsyth, sporting one of his ‘Jesus drank Riesling’ T-shirts. And you should try the Riesling too: both Forsyth’s divine incarnations and those from across the region; Pinot Noir is not the only variety with which Central excels.

It’s hard to fully evoke the sublime draw of Central Otago. As the local poet, Brian Turner wrote of his land: ‘You have to be here, you have to feel the deep, slow surge of the hills, the cloak of before, the wrench of beyond.’

Jo Burzynska is a wine writer, author and judge, and wine editor of the New Zealand Herald.

• This originally featured in the top 10 holidays for wine lovers in the February issue of Decanter, on sale now. Subscribe to Decanter here. 

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The time is ripe for New Zealand to democratise the enjoyment of fine Pinot Noir and leading producer Cloudy Bay intends to be at the vanguard, declared estate director Ian Morden last week.

In London for a Pinot Noir Salon blind tasting, which featured the newly released 2014 vintage of the estate’s Central Otago Te Wahi Pinot Noir, Morden said the estate’s brand and strong distribution network gives it a great opportunity to showcase New Zealand Pinot Noir to a wider audience than the best Burgundies will ever reach.

‘There’s huge potential there – New Zealand can produce good, reliable Pinot Noir at good yields, year in, year out, unlike Burgundy which is far more mercurial,’ commented Morden.

‘The time is right too: China’s younger generation is moving away from Bordeaux; food trends are evolving towards a cuisine that suits Pinot Noir matches; and the increased focus on provenance also counts in its favour: you can’t fake a great Pinot Noir.’

• Take a tour of the Cloudy Bay garden at Chelsea Flower Show

With senior winemaker Tim Heath, Morden showed the 2014 Te Wahi blind, alongside other fine wines.

‘Tasting across varieties is a modern way of appreciating fine Pinot Noir that goes beyond benchmarking – we’re looking for sensory cues, showing wines that inspired us in our Central Otago Pinot Noir project. It’s not as simple as chasing Burgundy as the benchmark, which will always leave you heartbroken.’

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Wines featured in the Salon tasting included a Domaine de Montille Volnay premier cru (chosen for its tension, and perfect balance of tannins and acidity); Domaine Cedric Chignard’s Fleurie (for its crunchiness, purity, stripped-back fruit and energy); Domaine Dujac, Clos de la Roche Grand Cru (for the use of whole bunches, adding sinewy, chewy tannins); Jamet’s Côte Rôtie (to show power, expressed with a delicate hand); and Vega Sicilia, Valbuena (for its skilful use of oak).

• Cloudy Bay 30th anniversary tasting: Five of the best

Cloudy Bay, which has produced Pinot Noir in its Marlborough home since 1989, bought two vineyards in Central Otago five years ago, including the famous Calvert vineyard – ‘as close as you can get in New Zealand to a grand cru’, said Morden.

The fruit in Central Otago is naturally more flamboyant than in Marlborough, and so the winemaking here is all about restraint, about applying the brake pedal. ‘Ripe is a safe place,’ says Heath, ‘but you’ll never achieve greatness there. You need to aim for just ripe, which is a scary place.’

Despite the opportunity for Pinot Noir, Morden was reluctant to draw parallels with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which saw an explosion of popularity in the 1990s.

‘That success came about when people started drinking wine on its own, as it has a completeness to it. Pinot Noir is different – it’s red, it’s more expensive and it’s a more natural food partner. Both, however, have an immediacy, vibrant aromatics and an acid line – and both should be about structure.’

The Te Wahi Pinot Noir will be available from Jeroboams Elizabeth Street, Jeroboams Pont Street, Whole Foods Kensington, Whole Foods Fulham and retails for £65.

Central Otago in 2014

The wines from Central Otago are outstanding, with attention to detail in all aspects: ripe fruit, ripe tannins and ripe flavours, delivering wines with poise, tension, complexity and a great finish. The wines tasted so far promise real complexity, and a long life is assured for many, which will be drinking well from 2020.

See below for Douglas’s top 2014 Central Otago Pinot Noir wines

The vintage delivered unusual consistency across all sub-regions. ‘A mild winter followed by a warm, calm spring, above-average conditions for flowering, fruit set and even spring growth,’ says Sarah-Kate Dineen of Maude Wines. Nick Mills of Rippon Vineyard in Wanaka says the wines are ‘bright and forward – not as compressed as in recent years – which means they may reach their optimal drinking time earlier than usual’.

‘We ended up harvesting over our normal time frame: early April till the beginning of May,’ recalls Olly Masters of Misha’s Vineyard in Bendigo. ‘All the fruit was picked in pristine condition and we believe we’ve ended up with the best varietal expression to date.’

‘Individual blocks and clones offered themselves for harvest at a steady, pleasingly unrushed pace,’ recalls Blair Walter from Felton Road Wines in Bannockburn. ‘Yields were balanced with good levels of acidity.’

In Alexandra, Central Otago’s oldest wine subregion, a few spring frosts meant lighter bunch weights, but a healthy outcome overall.

‘The fruit was in exceptional condition with excellent flavours and balance – it was a cracker!’ enthuses Phil Handford of Grasshopper Rock Wines. If his 2014 is indicative of the rest of the production, then it’s a must-have for the cellar – keep it safe till 2018 for the first sip.

Top 2014 Central Otago Pinot Noir:

Rated by Decanter’s experts

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Central Otago Pinot Noir 2017: Vintage report and top picks

New Zealand Pinot Noir wines to seek out

More and more French wine drinkers are enthusiastically embracing foreign wines, as shown during a recent tour of France by New Zealand Pinot Noir producers - who also offered a critique of Burgundy for good measure, writes Andrew Jefford in his weekly column.

This, I guess, is how the wine world moves forward. It starts, typically enough, with an idea – in this case, from Jérôme Faure, group head sommelier for the Constance Hotels group of Indian Ocean hotels and resorts.

The idea was to promenade some key New Zealand Pinot Noir producers (Nigel Greening from Felton Road; Ivan and Chris Donaldson from Pegaus Bay; Larry McKenna and Carol Bunn from Escarpment; and Helen Masters from Ata Rangi) on a series of wine dinners through Loiseau group restaurants in France, showing off their Pinots and Chardonnays to French diners as they did so, and fetching up in Burgundy. They kindly asked me to join them, but I had a pre-existing commitment; I did, though, recently catch up with Nigel Greening for a debrief.

• Read more Jefford on Monday

Greening was surprised at the reaction his wines got. ‘There’s been a huge change in enthusiasm among the French about trying non-French wines, especially in Paris. A lot of this is down to sommeliers: they’ve worked in London, New York, Hong Kong, Dubai, and they’ve had the sacred nature of French wine knocked out of them years ago. People were curious, appreciative, knowledgeable.

I had to rethink my prejudices as fast as I absorbed their responses. One young man who was dining with his parents handed me an envelope containing a request for employment when he finished his studies – he was travelling to New Zealand to read for a masters in winemaking and viticulture at Lincoln University in Christchurch. How cool is that?’

French wine-lovers appreciated ‘the relative quality of our village-level wines compared to the higher-tier wines. In Burgundy the gap is quite large; it’s much subtler with us. But they were also shocked at the price of the top wines.’ The Kiwis were in turn impressed by how many Burgundian wine producers turned out for the dinners they did there – and how familiar they already were with the wines.

‘Mostly they get the wines poured by distributors when they are travelling, but we do sell in France and I was surprised to learn that there are three restaurants in Dijon with our wines on the list. They send their children down to us to be trained; we send ours up to them. And just as we try to visit Burgundy, they come down to have a look around. There are currently two prominent Burgundy wine makers making test cuvées in Central Otago with an eye to setting up shop.

‘What do Burgundians make of conditions in Central Otago? ‘They look at our fruit and often comment on what an easy ride we have. François Millet of de Vogüé is down a lot. The first time he was with us, he looked at the fruit coming in and said “This is what ours looks like after 12 hours’ sorting.” But,’ continues Greening, ‘it’s a challenge as well as a blessing. To get their levels of tannic ripeness, we’d have to leave fruit out until it was about 17%.

Out of all the strings which form the race to ripeness, sugar is the slowcoach in Burgundy. They’ll get everything else, and sugar is trudging along in last place. For us, the sugars are streaking out in front. Our phenological ripeness is the slowcoach. We waiting for decent lignifications of seeds and so on, as that’s the first day we can pick. By then, we have 13.8%, 13.9% — if we’re lucky; if not, it’s more. If we go for an earlier picking window, we’ll get green tannin.’

Greening and his fellow travelers were ‘enormously impressed by the improvement in winemaking within Burgundy. They always had the experience passed down from generation to generation, but we tended to lead on technical understanding.

These days they have at least the same levels of technical understanding that anybody has in the New World, plus all that experience, and as a result they’re making wines of extraordinary precision, with fewer and fewer flaky wines. At their prices, of course, they can’t afford for the wines not to be absolutely right. There can’t have been a time when Burgundy was making better wine than now: it’s an absolute peak of quality. That excites me.’

He was, though, bemused at the notion of biodynamics in Burgundy, where growers may just own a row or two of vines in a particular vineyard. ‘We run a closed-gate farm, with only a third of the land in vines; the rest is dedicated to creating the ecosystem. We have our own cows; we make our own composts and preps. That’s just a dream in Burgundy. Biodynamics in Burgundy is just organics with a few preps added. I can’t believe that would make a big difference.’

And what did the architect of Felton Road admire most in those he visited? He was impressed with ‘risk junkie’ Mounir Sawma of Lucien Le Moine.

‘We looked at an amphora filled with Corton Charlemagne berries and left on skins with no treatment at all for the last nine months. The cap has just started to fall and the liquid is fabulous: deeply phenolic, like no Corton you could ever find in a bottle, but a completely engrossing, complex wine that is probably far closer to the wines made by the original Cistercians than anything in any Burgundy cellar today.’

Precision was a hallmark, he felt, of both Rousseau (‘the incredible consistency of arc: winemaker and place just run together with accuracy that leaves me envious and bewildered’) and Sauzet (whose wines were ‘honed to a micron of accuracy’).

And Jean-François Coche? ‘No honing, no striving for perfection. These are wines of natural, organic power.’ The man himself left an impression, too, on the winemakers who’d flown north from the landscape of Middle-earth. ‘He was a bit gnarly, dressed for the vineyard. He sat on his stool made from old vine trunks like Radagast from the Lord of the Rings. One expected a goshawk to come and perch on his shoulder.’

Over the past 30 years, New Zealand’s Pinot Noir has gone from strength to strength and become a serious player on the world stage. Here, Bob Campbell MW highlights the stylistic differences between each of the country’s five main regions, and the key estates and wines to watch...

Amisfield’s estate vineyards, at the food of the Pisa mountain range in Central Otago

• See Bob Campbell MW’s pick of his favourite 20 New Zealand Pinot Noirs

The rapid and sustained growth of Pinot Noir quality has been the most exciting development during my 40-year involvement in the New Zealand wine industry. Thirty years ago, New Zealand Pinot Noir was a curiosity; a mixed bag of experimental wines that were mostly a bit thin, green and acidic. Today, it is our second-most planted variety; an international brand that has found a place on the wine lists of many famous restaurants in Europe, America and Asia.

At first, winemakers tried to reproduce the Burgundy benchmark before chasing the charm of greater fruit and alcohol ripeness as they began to get a sense of regional, and in many cases sub-regional, style. As the number of Pinot Noir vineyards grew, winemakers began to understand which combination of soil type, aspect and climatic conditions were best suited to this fickle red variety. Pinot Noir winemakers gathered once a year at a Pinot Noir workshop to taste samples and compare methods. That annual event probably contributed more to Pinot Noir quality in New Zealand than any other single factor.

Regional styles are now well accepted and understood despite the blurring effect of winemaking methods and vintage variation. An experienced taster should have a fighting chance of correctly identifying wines from the main five regions.

Since the moderately challenging 2008 vintage, the seasons have been kind to Pinot Noir growers in the top five regions: Wairarapa/ Martinborough, Nelson, Marlborough, Waipara and Central Otago. 2010 and (provisionally) 2013 are the strongest overall vintages, with 2009 and 2012 in Central Otago also worthy of special mention. Recent trends include the addition of greater quantities of whole bunches to provide more tannic structure, longevity and ultimately complexity, though sometimes at the cost of early drinkability. New Zealand Pinot is, like the men and women who make it, exuding greater confidence than ever before.

The big five

Martinborough was the country’s Pinot Noir capital for many years until the accessibility and seductive fruitiness of the Central Otago wines allowed the world’s most southerly wine region to snatch the crown. Waipara and Nelson showed they could also produce outstanding wines, though a lack of critical mass prevented them from mounting a serious challenge to Central Otago’s increasing lead.

Marlborough got off to a late start after early Pinot vineyards were planted on soils that were too light to produce wines of intensity and complexity. A move to heavier, clay-rich soils and occasionally onto sloping hillsides has since proven Marlborough can make very serious wines indeed. Pioneering planting in the cool climate and limestone-laced soils of the Waitaki Valley (Ostler) and North Canterbury (Bell Hill and Pyramid Valley) have produced wines with truly exciting promise.

Marlborough (2,367 ha)

In its early years of Pinot Noir production, Marlborough produced fairly lacklustre wines. Over-cropping was often

cited as the prime reason for poor performance, although it now appears that the first vineyards were simply planted in soils that were too light and free-draining to produce noteworthy wines. Fromm’s close-planted and rigorously managed hillside Clayvin vineyard demonstrated that Marlborough could indeed make great Pinot Noir and that the clay-rich southern side of the Wairau valley offered some of the region’s very best sites. Fromm, Villa Maria, Dog Point, Cloudy Bay, Greywacke, Wither Hills, Giesen vineyard, Auntsfield (pictured left) and Seresin are some of my favourite producers. The wines tend to be quite aromatic with an array of red fruits, particularly red cherry, with firm tannic structures that help promote good cellaring potential. These wines can often be under-valued and, in my view, offer some of New Zealand’s best Pinot Noir bargains.

Central Otago (1,366 ha)

Viticulture dates back to the gold rush days of the 1860s, although the modern industry really only began in the early 1990s. Pinot Noir has grown dramatically in size and stature since then. Central Otago is the only New Zealand wine region with a continental influence. It has a climate of extremes, with cold winters and short, hot summers. Wine production in Central Otago has been described

as ‘making wine on the edge of an abyss’. The region doesn’t suffer massive vintage variation, but frost is an ever-present risk and it doesn’t take much of a drop in temperature during the ripening season to make life difficult for winemakers in cool regions such as Gibbston and Wanaka. Warmer sub-regions, such as Bannockburn (Felton Road, Mt Difficulty, Akarua, Doctor’s Flat, Terra Sancta and Carrick), Bendigo (Quartz Reef, Mud House, Misha’s Vineyard (pictured right) and the Cromwell Basin (Burn Cottage, Pisa Range, Amisfield, Lowburn Ferry, Rockburn, Wooing Tree) typically produce wines that are often described as ‘classically Central Otago’ with strong, sweet plum and cherry flavours, together with a seasoning of thyme character in some cases. Gibbston (Gibbston Valley) and Wanaka (Rippon Vineyards) tend to make cooler, edgier wines with red cherry, fresh herb, spice and often a pronounced mineral character. Alexandra (Grasshopper Rock, Judge Rock, Two Paddocks) boasts the region’s hottest summer temperatures, making tight, mineral-laced wines.

Wairarapa/Martinborough (478ha)

Dry River was the earliest of the current producers to plant vines in Martinborough when it established a vineyard in 1979. The gravelly soils of an old riverbed proved ideal for the production of dense, rich and often complex wines with the flavour of dark-fleshed plums, often with a subtle savoury influence. Wairarapa is the geographic name of a large area including Martinborough but is used locally to describe a vineyard area just north of Martinborough planted on a series of river terraces. The Wairarapa sub-region tends to produce lighter, softer and suppler Pinot Noir, with cherry and plum flavours. Top producers include Ata Rangi, Dry River, Kusuda, Martinborough Vineyards and Shubert.

Waipara (267ha)

Waipara is an hour’s drive north of Christchurch. It has a range of limestone-laced hills sheltering it from coastal breezes, producing drier conditions during the grape ripening period. Waipara can be broadly divided into two areas: the plains, which are made up of free-draining gravel and alluvial deposits; and the hills, with their heavier limestone-

derived clay soils. Hillside vineyards tend to produce more concentrated and richly textured wines with dark fruit flavours and occasionally a chalk/mineral influence. Pinot Noir from the plains is usually lighter and more supple with flavours that have a bias toward red fruits. Top producers in Waipara include Black Estate, Glasnevin, Greystone (pictured left), Mountford, Muddy Water, Omihi Hills and Pegasus Bay.

Nelson (185ha)

Nelson, like Waipara, can be divided into two distinct sub-regions, each producing different styles of Pinot. The friable, free-draining soils of the Waimea Plains feature silty, sandy or stony clay soils over a gravel base. This moderately large area produces a range of Pinot Noir styles, which can be generally described as having pronounced soft red fruit flavours. They are usually accessible wines often featuring vibrant acidity. Brightwater, Greenhough and Waimea are my favourite producers. The Moutere Hills features sandy top soils with clay and gravel sub-soils and occasional limestone deposits. The best vineyard sites are on north-facing slopes. The area produces richer, more concentrated and more structured wines than the plains.

See Bob Campbell MW’s pick of his favourite 20 New Zealand Pinot Noirs

Written by Bob Campbell MW

See both sides of the debate as to whether wine sub-zones can be too small to hold any real meaning to the consumer, as featured as the 'burning question' in the Decanter May 2014 issue...

How intricate can the terroir message get before relations with wine lovers turn sour? There is no hard and fast formula for the size of a wine region or the layers of sub-denominations woven into it, as Decanter columnist Andrew Jefford has noted in his weekly musings for Decanter.com.

And yet, it is a question occupying more and more minds across the wine world, as producers from Marlborough to California via Chile seek to better understand climactic conditions and the soil beneath their feet.

It has become rarer to hear France chided for the dazzling nature of its appellation system, contrasting starkly with the early 21st century’s obsession with varietal-led marketing. In France itself, a recent ruling by the Conseil d’Etat upheld the Loire’s first grand cru, Quarts de Chaume, and some producers hope it will lead to a Burgundian-like network of regional crus in the future.

In Italy, the focus of this issue of Decanter, a small but growing minority of Brunello di Montalcino producers plan to propose that Montalcino’s governing consorzio demarcates the Tuscan region’s sub-zones. A similar campaign is afoot nearby in Chianti.

Proponents argue that zoning would highlight subtle stylistic differences in the wines and could define 20 micro-terroirs within Montalcino, while also leading to better maps for tourists. But critics say estates blend grapes from a range of zones, and so efforts to map them are largely pointless.

Further north, the long-running war of words over Barolo’s Cannubi vineyard in Piedmont continues. Last autumn, Rome’s high administrative court, the Consiglio di Stato, ruled to once again relax regulations to allow producers on 34ha of vineyards to call their wines simply Barolo Cannubi – a decision that some feel is so simplistic as to be misleading.

But, how much weight should be given to zoning? Can sub-zones ever be too intricate to hold real meaning?

Yes

Ezio Rivella, who spent 24 years as winemaker at Banfi, warned that zoning can’t always give the complete picture. ‘Significant numbers of Montalcino producers blend wines from Brunello grapes grown in different sub-zones. Why? Because this produces more complete Brunello than that from a single zone. Even within a single geographical sub-zone, Brunellos grown at differing altitudes taste very different.’

In Piedmont, Marchesi di Barolo co-owner Anna Abbona said the recent ruling to maintain a larger general Cannubi area was a victory for common sense: ‘It affirms our family history in producing wine from this historic vineyard site.’

Richard Halstead, co-founder of UK research group Wine Intelligence, said producers should also guard against regional politics. Young wine consumers in particular dislike ‘obscurity for its own sake’, he said.

Some believe decisions should depend on the existing reputation of the region as a whole. For example, in 2005, the 6,000-hectare Niagara Peninsula in Canada’s Ontario province was divided into 10 sub-appellations. ‘They’ve made the sub-appellations too small, too soon,’ said producer Charlie Pillitteri. ‘We’ve been too French [following the AC system] due to Canada’s cultural roots.’

No

Burgundy is arguably the finest example of terroir demarcation, and its climats have been proposed for the Unesco World Heritage list. ‘The consumer of fine wines wants this diversity’ said Aubert de Villaine, co-proprietor of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. ‘And if Burgundy today is one of the regions that has the best reputation for excellence, then it is because we obey this diversity. It is an idea at the very heart of Burgundy.’

He added that Burgundy has ‘won the battle’ against naysayers in France who argued the region had too many appellations. ‘It’s extremely interesting to see a succession of wine regions, like Alsace, Montalcino, Central Otago or California, looking at this potential of terroir.’

Regarding the proposal in Montalcino, Roberto Terzuoli, who trained at Biondi-Santi before founding his 4.6ha SassodiSole winery, said, ‘Clients tell us Montalcino’s micro-terroirs are as fascinating to them as grand cru Burgundy’.

Others agree that not declaring significant sub-zones is unfair to consumers. Berry Bros & Rudd’s Piedmont-based buyer, David Berry Green, said, ‘The [recent] Cannubi decision will only create more confusion, as those buying Barolo Cannubi will not know whether they’re getting the genuine article.’

Written by Decanter

This year's Decanter World Wine Awards Regional Trophy for New Zealand Pinot Noir under £15 went to Lay of the Land, Ben Morven Farm Pinot Noir, Marlborough 2012 (14%)

Tasted against:

• Mt Difficulty, Roaring Meg Pinot Noir, Central Otago 2012
• Staete Landt, Map Maker Pinot Noir, Rapaura, Marlborough 2013

Profile:

Lay of the Land’s winemaker Mike Paterson’s first job out of university was as a banker. It was during this time that he met his now wife, Anna, who happened to be employed by a fine wine distributor. As she brought her work home with her, Paterson slowly began to ponder a change in his career path.

He eventually became the winemaker at Jackson Estate in Marlborough, although the desire to start his own wine business with Anna still burned. Step in Naked Wines, a customer-funded wine business, which provided the cash necessary for them to initiate their own venture. Lay of the Land’s first vintage was in 2011.

The sub-region of Ben Morven Valley covers a small part of Marlborough’s South Valleys region. As opposed to the more free-draining, alluvial land found in Wairau River, the soils here are rich in clay which, says Paterson, ‘lend more density, flesh and extract to Pinot Noir’. This single vineyard is tended to in a way that amplifies these characteristics.

Paterson produces about 700 cases a year of this Trophy-winner: ‘This is an expression of a single site and the 2012 growing season. It represents our unique and special vineyard, as well as the wonderfully talented and caring people who farm it.’

Written by Decanter

Cloudy Bay winemaker Tim Heath gives Decanter.com an exclusive look at the first vintage of the winery's new Te Wahi 2010 Pinot Noir from Centra Otago in New Zealand.

Tim, who has been at Cloudy Bay for eight years, details the reasons behind purchasing three new plots in the southernmost wine making region of the country and how Te Wahi differes from Cloudy Bay’s original Pinot Noir.

Cloudy Bay have produced a thousand cases of Te Wahi 2010 which will be officially lunched and released on sale in Spring 2013.

Celebrated New Zealand producer Cloudy Bay has unveiled plans to launch a new Central Otago Pinot Noir this year.

The first vintage of the new wine, Te Wahi 2010, will be available to taste at the Pinot at Cloud Bay Tasting on 8 September in Marlborough, the LVMH-owned winery said.

‘After 27 years of producing wine in Marlborough, we felt at liberty to explore further afield and create a different expression of Pinot Noir,’ said Cloudy Bay winemaker Nick Lane.

‘This is not simply a “marketing cook-up”, but an opportunity for us to expand into exciting new territory.’

Cloudy Bay started working with growers in Central Otago in 2009, sourcing fruit from three hectares of vineyards in the region, and hopes to acquire its own vineyards there by 2013.

Lane told Decanter.com that the wine will typically spend 14 months in 40% new French oak, with no more than 1,000 cases released each year, at an expected retail price of NZ$70-80.

Australia and New Zealand are key launch markets for the 2010 vintage, along with the UK.

Cloudy Bay is also examining the possibility of acquiring Pinot Noir vineyards in the Martinborough region in the near future.

‘Sourcing quality fruit in Marlborough is becoming increasingly difficult due to intense competition for vineyards. If we want to produce more quality Pinot Noir, then we may need to look further afield,’ Lane admitted.

The release date for Te Wahi 2010 is yet to be confirmed.

Written by James Lawrence

The recently-resigned head of the New Zealand stock exchange has just bought a winery in the country’s prime Pinot Noir region.

After 10 years as CEO of the NZX, Mark Weldon made headlines when he resigned last week.

Now, days later, he has announced his purchase of Olssen’s of Bannockburn in Felton Road, Central Otago.

Weldon, a former Olympic swimmer and law graduate, has an impressive CV but no experience of the wine industry.

‘The vineyard, Jen Parr the winemaker, and the wines themselves are amazing, and we have every intention of investing to maintain and improve the focus on quality wines,’ Weldon said.

‘We believe deeply in the vineyard, the old vines, the quality of the Bannockburn sub-region, and the future of the estate.’

Heather McPherson, co-founder of Olssen’s, will continue to play a role in the winery under Weldon’s ownership, after 22 years running the business.

The sum paid has not been disclosed.

Written by Rebecca Gibb in Auckland

Decanter contributing editor Stephen Brook is in New Zealand - we catch up with him in Central Otago

A full day in Central Otago on Tuesday, beginning with a regional tasting that showed the wide range of styles on offer from this dispersed region. It also showed the potential for Riesling here.

Global economic trends have put a stop to vineyard expansion, and some have been abandoned – a distressing sight to the locals. Lunched at the spectacular Peregrine winery, with its immense roofs in the shape of a falcon’s outspread wing.

I moved down the valley to Bannockburn, where I toured the area’s vineyards with Michael Herrick from the Mt Difficulty winery, the region’s largest, before tasting a large selection of their wines.

Nigel Greening from Felton Road came to collect me. Nigel, fizzing with energy as always, introduced me to the biodynamic estate’s chickens and cows, and to the winery cat, Jancis. Above her cat-bed is a photo of her patron saint.

I was supposed to dine with Nigel, until someone reminded him that it was his wife’s birthday that day. For some reason he preferred her company to mine, but left me in the hands of Blair Walter, the Felton Road winemaker whom I have known even longer than Nigel.

The wines, as always, are sensationally good, including the Rieslings: the 2010 Block 1 is a dead ringer for a Nahe Riesling from Germany.

Is there any other New World region that can come so close to fine German Rieslings in style? Some older vintages with dinner at Blair’s house, but the celebrated Block 5 Pinot was just too meaty and overbearing for my taste.

The next day I visited other properties: the tiny Pisa Range, with its very consistent and intense Pinots, and the recently planted Misha’s Vineyard, a large site overlooking Lake Dunstan. Richard, the estate viticulturalist, cooked up some whitebait (that resemble elvers more than British whitebait) in the vineyards, washed down by unusually refreshing Gewurztraminer.

A late afternoon flight brought me to Christchurch, and another flight the next morning took me to Wellington, and then by car to Martinborough.

More Pinots! These I sampled in a large blind tasting, with excellent wines from, among others, Alana, Cambridge Road, Margrain, Brodie, Schubert, Escarpment, and Pond Paddock.

In the evening I dined with Hiroyuki Kusuda and his wife, after sampling almost every wine he had made since fetching up in Martinborough in 2002.

Incredibly intense Pinots of real refinement, and some of the coolest cool-climate Syrahs I have ever tasted. And some racy Rieslings to go with the raw fish.

Written by Stephen Brook

Actor Sam Neill seems more nervous about the prospect of his wine being slated than he is of seeing his latest film get a critical drubbing. RICHARD NEILL

Despite a flurry of e-mails to the winery manager at the Central Otago Wine Company, where Sam Neill’s Two Paddocks Pinot Noir is made, my request to taste a barrel sample of the 2000 vintage is politely but firmly turned down.

‘I learned the hard way,’ says the star of Jurassic Park, when we eventually meet up for lunch in the small mining town of Clyde. ‘On one of the first occasions I showed my wine to the New Zealand press I was completely appalled by its quality. There’s something about Two Paddocks – it goes into a terrible sulk after bottling and it doesn’t like to be seen,’ explains the Kiwi actor.

‘It’s like showing a rough cut of a movie. It doesn’t matter if you show it to other directors or critics that have been around for 30 years, you are still looking at a rough cut and it’s not the same as the film you’ll see in the cinema. I’ve vowed never to show my wines too early again.’ Neill, without doubt New Zealand’s most successful actor, grew up in a household where wine was a regular topic of conversation. The Dunedin-based family company Neill & Co was one of the biggest importers of wine and spirits and for many years sold the biggest-selling brandy in the country – a brand called Beehive. ‘My father said the reason it sold so well was because people could pronounce the name,’ laughs Neill.

Two Paddocks Pinot Noir 2014

Neill and wine

But it was his friendship with Rippon Estate’s Rolfe Mills, who sadly died last year, that led Neill to set up his own vineyards. ‘Rolfe was an inspiration – it was those early Pinots of his that made me think of starting something,’ says Neill, who eventually bought a plot of vines in the Gibbston Valley in 1993. ‘It has become more ambitious than it started off being. At first I was just thinking about producing something that my wife and I would drink, and no one was more surprised than I was when we opened up that first bottle.’

The name of his wine – Two Paddocks – was the result of a planned partnership with film director friend Roger Donaldson. ‘We both had a paddock of vines close to each other and ‘Two Paddocks’ seemed like a logical name. But Roger then discovered they’d planted Chardonnay for him instead of Pinot Noir and by the time he got around to replanting he was two years behind me.’

Pinot Noir is Neill’s passion. ‘It’s so elusive. I love the way it expresses itself, not just from vineyard to vineyard and region to region but from bottle to bottle. It’s always just beyond your grasp and when you do manage to hang on to it, it’s only for a fleeting moment.’ So is burgundy the benchmark he aspires to? ‘I’ve drunk so many great bottles of burgundy but so many ordinary bottles, too. To be honest I don’t think you get much bang for your buck anymore – if you want to drink a really good bottle it’s got to be so expensive you start to feel a bit guilty.’

On the prospects for Central Otago Pinot Noir he is optimistic but understands it is still early days for this region. ‘I don’t have the wine vocabulary to delineate what is happening here but there is definitely a Central Otago style emerging. The thing about this region is that we’re not just isolated from the rest of the country, we’re isolated from each other, and I think that has brought us together more than other regions.’As well as his Gibbston Valley vineyard, Neill has bought two new properties in the Alexandra Basin. The first, called Redbank, is an ex-Government research station that Neill believes could be the next Felton Road. ‘What you really need in this part of the world is heat and we know from the Met records that this is the hottest place in Central Otago.’ The second new property is a very beautiful north-facing vineyard, surrounded by dramatic wind-eroded stone bluffs, called Alex Paddocks. ‘There is a famous saying about there being many places in the world that will appeal to you, but only one landscape that you will fall in love with, and that is where you belong,’ reflects Neill. ‘That’s how I feel about Central Otago.’

Written by RICHARD NEIL