Ata Rangi McCrone Vineyard: Tasting the difference

How different can wines made from grapes grown on opposite sides of the road be? Rebecca Gibb MW found out during a visit to Ata Rangi in Martinborough, New Zealand, and reports on her favourite Pinot Noir wines tasted.

The year was 1988 and the wine world had only just discovered the electrifying flavours of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

The idea that this tiny, lamb-chop shaped country at the end of the earth would soon become a reputed Pinot Noir producer seemed as likely as Italy beating the All Blacks.

We might still be waiting for the latter, but many of us wine lovers are now thankful that Clive Paton sold his milking cows and bought a piece of land in the then-rural backwater of Martinborough to grow Pinot Noir.

Scroll down to see Rebecca’s Ata Rangi Pinot Noir tasting notes

Paton and his wife Phyll attended the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in Oregon in 1988 as part of a Kiwi contingent, where they met Don and Carole McCrone.

This meeting led to a long-lasting friendship and the beginnings of a cross-hemisphere collaboration: Don, a politics professor turned grape grower in Carlton, Oregon, decided he too wanted to make Pinot Noir in New Zealand.

The McCrone Vineyard

In 2001, a 4ha block neighbouring Ata Rangi was up for grabs and the McCrones purchased it with a little help from their friends, who drove in the vineyard posts and planted a selection of Pinot clones.

The first release – a tiny bottling in 2006 to test the waters – was met with critical acclaim. But it has not been produced every year, with the fruit often making its way into Ata Rangi’s second-tier Pinot, Crimson, while waiting for the vines to mature.

In 2012, the McCrone’s sold their eponymous vineyard to Ata Rangi due to health reasons.

A string of superlative New Zealand growing seasons from 2013 to 2016 has provided four enigmatic single-vineyard bottlings, making an interesting comparison to Ata Rangi’s ‘estate’ Pinot Noir – a flagship blend of fruit from vineyards surrounding McCrone.

A Burgundian comparison

Despite being just across the road from Ata Rangi, the McCrone Vineyard is a pretty unique site on the Martinborough terrace, as winemaker Helen Masters explains: ‘There’s about 800mm of clay before the gravels, so it’s markedly different to our other vineyards.’ The result is a richer, rounder expression than the Ata Rangi Pinot Noir, with cocoa-powder-like tannins.

The classic Ata Rangi Pinot Noir, with its older vines, offers finer detail and greater nuance, but the comparison between the pair is almost Burgundian: the vines are all within spitting distance, they are tended and vinified in the same way, and yet the personality of the two sites is clear to taste.

The Ata Rangi Pinot Noir remains the superlative wine, but don’t forget that the vines have a 20-year headstart on those at McCrone.

While the late Spanish filmaker Luis Bunuel once famously said, ‘age doesn’t matter, unless you’re a cheese’, he could have appended that quote with ‘or a vine’.

Ata Rangi factfile

Founded 1980

Founder Clive Paton

Total hectares 32

Key named vineyards:

Home Block (Pinot Noir)

McCrone (Pinot Noir)

Craighall (Chardonnay and Riesling)

Lismore (Pinot Gris)

Petrie (Chardonnay)

Kotinga (Pinot Noir)

Di Mattina (Pinot Noir)

Comparing vineyards:

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