|
Prophet's Rock, Central Otago
A South Island New
Zealand road trip, part 4
Paul Pujol, Prophet's Rock
Prophet's Rock is emerging as one of the star wineries of Central
Otago. Widely travelled winemaker Paul Pujol is making some
increasingly impressive wines from two neighbouring vineyards in
Bendigo, the Home Vineyard and Rocky Point.
Paul has been at Prophet's Rock since 2005. The vineyards were
planted by Mike and Angela Mulvey in 1999/2000, and originally were
located on either side of Lake Dunstan, with the home vineyard in
Bendigo and a second vineyard in Pisa. When Prophet's Rock was sold
to a consortium in 2013, things were jiggled round a bit and now the
Pisa vineyard is gone and the home vineyard has been joined by
another, larger block a short distance away in Bendigo.
.JPG)
Paul began making wine with Seresin in Marlborough, and they gave
him the winter off to go to France: his French connection was that
he'd showed the guys from Henri Bourgeois around Marlborough when
they were looking to get involved. He started off working in the
Languedoc, then caught the vintage at Bourgeois in Chavignon,
Sancerre, then he headed over to Alsace in October, where he worked
at Kuentz-Bas. His initial plan was to head to the Hunter Valley for
vintage there, which would have led to him completing five vintages
in a calendar year, but instead things went well at Kuentz-Bas and
he stopped there. He ended up being chief winemaker for three years
(Paul's father is French so he has a European Union passport). He
was the first non-French chief winemaker in Alsace.
'It was winemaking Disneyland,' Paul recalls. 'There were 12
different grape varieties and 30 different Grand Crus with lots of
different soils. It was quite a unique insight for a new world wine
person into how it all runs.' One thing he became aware of was the
paucity of clonal material in New Zealand for Pinot Gris. 'We have
rubbish clones in New Zealand. They don't look the same, and they
crop heavily.'
After this, Paul went to work in Oregon with Lemelson, and then
returned to Prophets Rock. He revisited to Oregon in 2006, and then
had a seminal stay in Burgundy in 2009 where he did vintage at Comte
de Vogue in Chambolle. This was to have a big influence on the way
he now works, and was the beginning of his fruitful collaboration
with De Vogue winemaker Francois Millet.
The Home Vineyard (7.5 hectares) is on the higher terrace in
Bendigo. These are older soils, and have experienced more
weathering, with some schist degraded to clay. The red-coloured top
soil schist has quite a bit of iron and different bands of clay. In
this semi-arid climate there has been some accumulation of limestone
(pedogenic lime) where the calcium ions have not been rinsed through
by rainfall and have been held up by the clay. This builds up a
layer of pedogenic lime about a foot thick half a metre below the
surface at one end of the vineyard, and 80-100 cm down at the other.
It's an interesting soil, and the clay and limestone elements hold
on to water, which is handy. The back corner of the vineyard is at
400 metres, which is as high as you want to go in Central Otago. The
vineyard was planted in 2000, so now has some decent vine age.
Rocky Point (17 hectares) is straight schist, with bits of clay. It
was planted in 2005. Paul says that the clone difference are fading
with vine age. 'We used to get excited about clones when the vines
were young.'
Francois Millet and Paul Pujol
In an exciting development, Paul Pujol has been collaborating on a
guest cuvée with François Millet of De Vogue in Burgundy. They first
met when Paul worked a vintage there back in 2009. François has been
making wine there since 1986, and for the guest wine, Paul wanted to
encourage him to work his way, even to the point of buying in the
equipment that De Vogue use in Burgundy. 'He chose when to pick, and
even dug out his tank the day before he flew out,' says Paul. 'He's
pretty old school.' One of the different approaches Francois takes
is his racking of barrels, where wine is transferred out of one
barrel to another. 'He racks out of the heads through a wooden bung
during elevage, with a gentle hand pump,' says Paul. 'You can only
do 12 barrels a day. He racks after malolactic: he'll fine in barrel
and then rack. He likes taking the fine lees by jacking up the
barrel and then choosing which ones he wants. The elevage profile is
quite different compared with typical NZ winemakers. There is very
little extraction.'
Since working with Francois in 2009, Paul says he has found himself
moving in this direction, extracting less. 'The more I stripped
away, the wine seemed alive.' In 2013 he did just one hand plunge
for the whole fermentation. The lack of work during ferments at De
Vogue surprised him. 'In 2009 I was quite excited. I thought I would
get to hand plunge the Musigny, but he said no that terroir is too
mineral and it doesn't support any extraction. Just keep the
caps wet.' Francois will mix the caps a couple of times with a
gentle pumpover, but it's not extractive: more a spraying over.
Francois doesn't use stems, and Paul says that he's also moved away
from whole bunch. 'When I first got into wine I found that character
quite attractive, but I think that over time I've decided that stems
taste like stems. You want to see the vineyard. Our site is quite
high so our stems just weren't right.'
'You can pick stems on our site and they are bright green. If you
chew them you gag.'
I quizzed him about picking decisions. 'They are kind of everything;
the most important to get right. We get our flavour ripeness at
moderate to low alcohols.' He adds: 'In the new world we seem to be
terrified of missing physiological ripeness. The tendency is to pick
quite late compared with Burgundy. We seem to have more of an
imbalance between sugar and ripeness. There seems to be a gap
between sugar and physiological ripeness. You end up with high
potential alcohol. There is style, too: plenty of people in the new
world like big, dark Pinots. We track acidity, sugar and pH. This
gives a broad window, then it's really by taste.
'Sometimes it's harder to do less than more. Even the term
"winemaking" implies doing something.'
One of Prophets Rock's specialities is Pinot Gris, which Paul finds
fascinating. 'Here's this variety that can be the least aromatic
wine on the planet, through to some of the most opulent aromatic
wines in the world. In Central Otago we are lucky: we are cool
climate so Gris can stay on the vine long enough to go to an
aromatic spectrum of flavours retaining freshness and acidity.' He
says that one of the challenges in New Zealand is the clones, which
want to crop heavily with big bunches. He uses wild ferment, old
barrels and full lees with his Pinot Gris.
THE
WINES
Prophet's Rock Pinot Noir Cuvée Aux Antipodes 2015 Central Otago
This is a collaboration between Paul Pujol of Prophet's Rock and
François Millet of Comte de Vogue in Burgundy. Finely aromatic with
lovely sappy, vital, fresh cherry fruit. There's more red fruit than
black, and also a nice touch of green. Finely spiced and structured
on the palate with good acidity. Juicy, linear and pure with amazing
precision and focus. There's beauty and precision to this wine with
lovely green hints. Ethereal. 96/100 (07/17)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2013 Central Otago, New
Zealand
There's much less extraction this year, a new direction that Paul
Pujol is taking. Beautifully aromatic, this is savoury and textural
with spice and minerals, as well as nice red cherry fruit. Good
acidity with some raspberry freshness. Nice concentration and grip,
yet also silky and fine: this is superb. 95/100 (07/17)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2013 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Paul Pujol made five small tanks of this wine. One got no pumpovers
or plunging, and had no stems. The rest got one hand plunge, and
were in tank for 28-32 days, and again, no stems were used. Lovely
aromatics: fresh red cherries, fine herbs, a touch of cedar. The
palate is structured and quite firm with good tannins and lovely
purity. Very fresh with a bit of tannic bite under the sweet fruit.
Lovely focus to this wine. 95/100 (01/17)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2011 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Juicy, bright and fresh with nice structure under the sweet, pure
cherry and plum fruit. Nice warm spicy undertones. There's a silky
elegance here, finishing bright and spicy. 93/100 (10/14)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 201o Central Otago, New
Zealand
Fine, aromatic red cherry fruit nose. Expressive red cherries and
plums on the palate. Lovely elegance here with fine texture and
lovely balance. Floral and quite beautiful. 95/100 (02/16)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Rounded and textured with lovely sweet cherry and plum fruit.
Fine-grained tannins with lovely weight. Ripe but still delicate.
93/100 (07/17)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Stylish with lovely structure under the pure red cherry and
raspberry fruit. Nicely focused and pure with real finesse and nice
structure, and fine grained tannins. Pure, well defined and
concentrated with a red fruit focus. 95/100 (10/14)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Very fine with a subtle leafy, spicy edge to the silky cherry fruit.
There's warm spiciness, too. This shows mature elegance with nice
finesse. 94/100 (07/17)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Paul Pujol says this was a very cool year with a cold February,
resulting in lighter coloured wines. The challenge was not to
respond to the little extraction of colour in the ferment by working
it harder. The result of his restraint is a beautiful pale Pinot
that is ageing fabulously. Fine red cherries with some dried herbs
and good structure and acid here. 94/100 (02/17)
Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir 2007 Central Otago, New
Zealand
This was the traumatizing vintage of Paul Pujol's life: there was
snow in the vineyard around flowering. Warm, a bit savoury and
textured with nice smoothness and good acidity. Some fine, spicy
notes, and hints of mint and medicine, as well as dried herbs.
93/100 (02/16)
Prophet's Rock Rocky Point Pinot Noir 2012 Central Otago, New
Zealand
Supple, fresh and direct with nice bright, focused red cherry fruit
with a bit of grip. Fresh with nice structure. Very stylish with
some juicy brightness. 92/100 (10/14)
Prophet's Rock Pinot Gris 2015 Central Otago, New Zealand
Lovely nutty, spicy, pear and peach notes adding interest to the
grape and citrus fruit. There’s a tightness on the finish but also
some lovely depth on the mid-palate. So attractive with a serious
side. 92/100 (02/17)
Prophet's Rock Pinot Gris 2014 Central Otago, New Zealand
Very attractive, honeyed and grapey with nice spiciness. Textured
and rich with lovely fruit quality. Really nice depth. 93/100
(02/16)
Prophet's Rock Pinot Gris 2012 Central Otago, New Zealand
Sweetly fruited yet very fresh with nice creamy texture and ripe
apples, pears and grapes. Distinctive with bright, sweet appley
fruit. A really interesting wine that finishes dry even though
there's a bit of sweetness here. Multilayered and textured. 92/100
(10/14)
Prophet's Rock Pinot Gris 2010 Central Otago, New Zealand
Quite floral and grapey with some spice, mango and toast on the
nose. Fresh, supple palate with a hint of tinned pea in the
background, and lovely tangerine, grape and spice notes. Lovely
textural wine. 93/100 (02/16)
Prophet's Rock Pinot Gris 2010 Central Otago, New Zealand
Fresh but textured with lovely apple and pear fruit. Fine grained
with nice weight and lovely fruit. Some grapey richness. 92/100
(07/17)
Prophet's Rock Dry Riesling 2010 Central Otago, New Zealand
Textured with lovely focus. Dry but with generosity. Lime, melon,
honey and apple notes, with some crystalline fruits. Stylish stuff
showing structure but also finesse. 93/100 (10/14)
Prophet's Rock Dry Riesling 2012 Central Otago, New Zealand
Lively and bright with lovely citrus intensity. Very textural, pure
and mineral. This has a slow whole bunch press, minimal settling and
is fermented in old barrels with wild yeast. 94/100 (02/16)
Prophet's Rock Dry Riesling 2007 Central Otago, New Zealand
Very interesting aromatics. Lovely melon, citrus, pear and wax notes
on the nose. Lovely intensity. Textured and broad on the palate with
lovely spice, honey and nut notes. Beautifully textural and quite
mineral with lovely depth. Some nuts and wax. Thrilling. 95/100
(02/16)
NEW ZEALAND ROAD TRIP 2016
 Mount
Maude, Central Otago
Rippon,
Central Otago
Burn
Cottage
Prophet's
Rock
CENTRAL
OTAGO PINOT NOIR 2014
Central Otago masterclass
Burgundy masterclass
24 fine wines tasted at the Grand Dinner
VISITING CENTRAL OTAGO (2014)
Gibbston
Valley
Chard
Farm
Wooing
Tree
Folding
Hill
Mount
Difficulty
Lowburn
Ferry
Grasshopper
Rock
Doctors
Flat
Visiting
Central Otago, New Zealand (2010) (series)
Visiting
Martinborough, New Zealand (series)
Wines
tasted as indicated
month/year
Find these wines with wine-searcher.com
Back
to top
|
