Saturday, May 26, 2007

Central Otago Pinot Noir Tasting

Our weekend in-house tasting of Central Otagon Pinot Noir saw some interesting turnout. I must say, I know very little about the World's most southerly winegrowing region of central Otago. I could not justify myself to speak very lengthy about the producers or their recent vintages. However, the attention that gather from the pinot noir coming from this region has motivate me to work on my research before tasting the list of pinot noir producers below, which came across as alien to me.

I was first drawn to this region by my love for pinot noir or burgundy at large. I seek to find a good alternative to the French counterpart to ease my impatient palate and my limited financial resources. As we all know, good vintages from burgundy requires time to reach their fullness, and the better producers, crus does correspond well with their price tag. My first bottle of pinot noir from central Otago was from Blair Walter's Felton Road (guess, everyone else share the same experinece). I was however even more impressed by Gibbston Valley's Reserve Pinot Noir, which I was fooled by my former business partner in blind that I have mistaken it for a French (rare for me these days to make such error). It shows you how high the quality one could expect from this cooler region of New Zealand.

A brief geographical tour of this region. Central Otago at large could be subdivided into two broad zones - Gibbston Valley & Cromwell Basin (also includes neighboring district such as Bannockburn, Bendigo and Alexandra). Gibbston Valley is mainly the mountainous vineyard that enjoys cooler growing condition due to it's high elevation. The lower elevation of Cronwell Basin is generally warmer and due to the dry growing condition (10 inches of rain a year), grape usually ripen early (three weeks early than most Gibbston Valley's vineyard). The lower elevated vineyard in Cromwell Basin is also more susceptible from frost, which is a common natural occurrence in most Central Otago. However, the sub-soil here is much similar to those of Burgundy, with stone, schist and underneath with clay. Nearly all the central Otago producers uses Cromwell and its neighbors fruit.

We started off the tasting with few whites from Kawarau Estate (Cromwell). 2006 Sauvignon Blanc with nice citrus fruit, mainly lime-skin like. Light and refreshing, but quite straightforward. Zesty and slightly tart finish. 2004 Reserve Chardonnay with distinct wood treatment nose of toasty, nutty element. Quite dense and good layers, but I was more impressed with its firmness (quite punchy) and focused frame. Also, the fruit did not fall into the conventional tropical fruit cocktail of many southern hemisphere chard. 2005 Reserve Chardonnay offer rather tight nose, more acid-influenced palate and somewhat tasted watery. No way in the league of their 04. The finishing also shown strong present of lime-like acid?

2003 Otago Crown (from Gibbston Valley fruit) impressive color and tinge of purple (cold soak?). Quite candied that dominated with liqueur-like dark cherry, black raspberries. Slightly leaning towards jam. Like most pinot noir from this area, the palate is quite cool, which unlike many Aussie's pinots, which tend to shown more alcohol and came across more heady. Very fruit-oriented palate and quite velvety. One of my top picked.

Pisa Moorings - famous holiday home of Cromwell. Wine is made by New Zealand famous flying winemaker, Dean Shaw. 2003 - Not particular deep hue and shows a distinct difference style that has much in common with Californian pinot noir. More viscous, liqueur-infused nose. The palate look to be cold soak-like fruitiness and almost taste like syrup. Quite fleshy and lack the velvety textured of Otago Crown. Shown more evident of alcohol. Fortunately, the cool palate and well sap finish help to keep thing in place. 2004 - Deeper more purple hue. Shown distinctly more elegant and acid-buffered palate. Clearly more focus and reserved, but the lightness seem to do with either underachieved in ripeness or over crop? Somehow hollow in the mid palate. 2005 - Denser color of all. Similar theme of 2003, with alcohol-infused, voluminous palate. The fruit sweetness also suggesting from dehydrated ripeness, which later is also evident on the dry tannin finish. The palate however has this interesting beacon-fatness, which recalled many Californian Pinot Noir that aged with its lees.

Van Asch - owned and made by the famous veteran New Zealand winemaker, Henry Van Asch with fruit sourced from Gibbston Valley. 2003 dense but not brilliant in color. Nice mineral-iodine infused cherry, raspberry nose. Quite fat, with distinctly more syrup-like sweetness. Some exotic, dehydrated fruit element emerged, but in an appealing way. also shown stalky element toward the end (no destemm?). Overall, I enjoy this one. 2002 is a disappointment. Aged clearly made it stamp on the color. Quite stalky palate, with aged plum, tarry element. Also, I found some green-herbal element, which shows that this vintage might have harvest in an drought condition where the fruit achieved the alcohol ripeness but not phenolic.

2005 Wooding Tree (Cromwell) - Denser color of all. Shown less pristine nose of briary (yeast?) odor. Quite intensely masculine that dominant by liqueur, black berries and currant. Rich and sweet with touch of earth. This is one of the few that I do not get my usual cool-pitched and sappiness, which made central Otago pinot noir so appealing to me. The grapefruit-like acidity toward the end also look odd. Too obvious acidification maybe?

Kawarau - this Cromwell producer claimed to be all organic farmed vineyards. Not surprised to learn that, Dean Shaw is their master winemaker. 2005 see the trace of Shaw's American pinots like character. From stressed vine either by trellising (high density planting) or simply from late-picked fruit. After my several training lessons with Benjamin LEROUX of Comte Armand, I could almost effortlessly pick up that the wine's ripeness is achieve from physiological ripeness or dehydrate sweetness (which is the most accurate way to tell from new to old world pinots). This clearly from the later source. It has an impressive start, and fail to persist with it's palate. 2004 shown more promising element with brighter, cooler palate, offers mixed of red and black berries with the returned of sappiness finish. Very elegant and balance. I will vote for this pinots if only the mid-palate was more substantial.

2005 Rocky Point - made by Prophet's Rock with fruit sourced from Pisa and Bendigo areas. Berry-scented, fruit bomb style, which hardly stir my excitement. Cold soak sweetness and fatness that is hollow on the middle that ended with acid-adjust like finish. Too conventional and not at the same high standard set earlier.

Alexandra Wine Company - 2004 "Davishon" - Healthy ruby color that delivers pure red and black berries fruit. Savory with lees-fatness that is both supple and juicy. I like the acid-preservation in this wine, which was more balance and less awkward. 2005 Prophet's Rock is denser, more confectionary sweetness. There are also more obvious woods treatment here, which in this case, help to firm up the generous palate. Darker more high-tone fruit with toffee, mocha sweet oak charged. However, this is still one of the best 05 I have tasted. More complete.

2004 Dry Gully - fruit sourced from Alexandra and wine made by Dean Shaw. Attractive viscous, sweet black cherries, dark berries with hint of Vosne's spice. Silky and the persisted sweetness is both attractive and sexy. The wine finish with cleansing acid-sap that was well delineated. If only there were more stuffing, which could easy score as one of my best wine.

Lindis River - I did not intentionally leave this wine towards the end, however, this is simply the best of the whole lineup. Owner, Holger Reinecke is originally from Germany and not surprise, burgundy was his idol which later inspired him to create his own pinot noir. Consultant winemaker is Dean Shaw. However, I could see the owner's participation here. 2004 Striking bright fruit with red berries, raspberries (distinctly red fruit) with wave of violet and rose petal that is both pure and inviting. Mineral-coated (wow!) raspberries on the palate that is quite multi-dimensional and layered. The underpinned acidity has kept the wine both lively and elegant. This is among the few that has truly shown a good middle-core density, which explains why it stands out from the crowd. 2005 clearly more substantial and more obvious sweetness. Despite that, this showy juice has good energy on the palate, which prevents it to become overwhelming. This lack of the balance and purity I seek on their 2004, the slightly obvious alcohol and wood handling also prevents the wine to show more transparency and details. However, this is highly attractive, sexy Euro-pinots style. It would be interesting to place this wine along with 2003 burgundy (drought year for burgundy), say, Chambolle Musigny (which has both the sexy fruit and mineral) in blind to see if anyone could spot which is Lindis River, which is Chambolle. Bravo Holger.
(*Interestingly, I took the bottle of Lindis River for dinner after the tasting. Amazingly, the wine held throughout the next three-four hours. Impressive.)

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