New
Zealand Pinot Noir: tasting 25 of the best
Pinot Noir, the prima donna of red grape varieties, is doing
rather well in New Zealand. So well, in fact, that you could
argue that overall NZ makes the best Pinot Noirs outside of
Burgundy. Now that’s a big claim, but one I feel is backed
up from this tasting of 25 leading New Zealand Pinot Noirs.
Yes, a handful of the leading names are missing, but still
this was a rare opportunity to assess so many of these wines
side-by-side.
Pinot Noir is a fussy grape. It’s difficult to grow, and
tricky to vinify. This means that the wines it produces are
invariably expensive, and the results are only sometimes worth
the bother. But for some reason, Pinot Noir has a
semi-mystical allure for those who have been bitten by the
Pinot bug, and for many winemakers in the new world, getting
Pinot Noir right has been sort of a holy grail of
winemaking. |
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New Zealand's wine
regions. Click for larger image ©
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The problem has been that most new world sites are too warm,
resulting in over-ripe, jammy wines. And early attempts with cooler
climates often had a streak of under-ripe, herbaceous character.
Unpleasant. Then there’s the winemaking: one common fault has been
to produce wines that are too big and extracted, with none of the
finesse and subtlety that great Red Burgundies are well known for.
Things have moved on, though, and there are many fine Pinots being
produced in cooler regions in Australia and the USA. The big question,
however, is whether their hit rate is as good as New Zealand’s. I
doubt it.
Pinot Noir is the most widely planted red variety in NZ with
just under 1400 ha of vines. For purposes of comparison, this is about
half the area occupied by Sauvignon Blanc, the current star of the NZ
winemaking scene. It’s debatable whether NZ Pinot will ever eclipse
NZ Sauvignon in the imagination of the wine drinking public, but it
certainly has the potential to be bigger than Chardonnay, not in terms
of quantity (Chardonnay is NZ’s most planted grape variety), but in
quality and interest. Remember that NZ is still quite a young wine
producing country – the number of vineyards has more than doubled
over the last decade. With further growth and expansion likely over
the next few years, it’s likely that Pinot Noir will become
increasingly important.
Now to the wines. Overall, the standard was very high. Three
were rated very good, and 8 very good+. As many as 11 received the
rating of 11 very good/excellent, with three attaining the
rarely-awarded assessment of excellent. While there was plenty of
stylistic variation, the winemaking stamp wasn’t overpowering, and
none of the wines was smothered in new oak. Personally, I’d like to
see wines with more earthiness and minerality, and perhaps a little
less colour extraction: winemakers don’t need to be quite so afraid
of lighter-coloured wines. But I’m being picky, and it may well be
that my preferences as a geek differ from those of many customers.
These wines aren’t cheap – Pinot Noir seldom is – but they offer
pretty good value for money, with most hovering in the low to mid
teens.
...to the wines
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May 2002
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