Felton Road Block 5 Pinot Noir 2017
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James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker -
Wine &
Spirits
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James Suckling
Plums and strawberries with orange peel. Perfumed with flowers. Medium body with lots of juicy and creamy texture and a ripe, seductive finish. Creamy and firm tannins. Tight now but great potential as always. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The standout this year is the 2017 Block 5 Pinot Noir, which takes rose petals and black tea, adds sexy notions of dried spices and puts those all against a backdrop of ripe black cherries and cola. It's medium to full-bodied, with a rich, silky mouthfeel and plenty of length on the finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Stuart Elms established this vineyard on Felton Road in 1992. This block is planted on an alluvial fan at the base of the hills, the soil a mix of schist gravels and lake sediments under windblown loess that allows the vine roots to descend ten feet or more. The 2017 smells of raspberry and rose, the fruit intensity driving the wine through muscle-bound oak, then coming back to ghost the finish. Time in the glass relieves some of the oak’s bittersweet-chocolate intensity, and allows the dark pomegranate flavors to shine more boldly. This is a big wine, built to cellar.
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Central Otago is located on the southern end of New Zealand's South Island (latitude 45º south) and shares with Oregon (45º north) similar viticultural challenges: late frosts in Spring, early frost in Autumn, a growing season that may be curtailed overnight. Yet the climates of both are surprisingly similar to Burgundy's Côte d'Or: hot in summer, cold in winter. Central Otago is New Zealand's only wine region with a continental - rather than maritime - climate, which results in greater diurnal and seasonal shifts in temperature.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Home to the globe’s most southerly vineyards, which are cultivated below the 45th parallel, Central Otago is a true one-of-a-kind wine growing region, but not only because of its extreme location.
Central Otago is more dependent on one single variety than any other region in New Zealand—and it isn’t Sauvignon blanc. They don’t even make Sauvignon blanc there.
Pinot Noir claims nearly 75% of the region’s vineyards with Pinot Gris coming in a far second place and Riesling behind it. This is also New Zealand’s only wine region with a continental climate, giving it more diurnal and seasonal temperature shifts than any other.
The subregion of Bannockburn has enjoyed the most success historically but the area’s exceptional growth has moved to the promising regions of Cromwell/Bendigo and Alexandra districts. Central Otago is known for its fruity and full-bodied Pinot noir. With the freedom to experiment here, growers and winemakers are easily exhibiting the area’s great potential.