Pyramid Valley Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019
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Winemaker Notes
Medium dark purple with clear hues. Fragrant blackberry and raspberry with hints of licorice, black pepper and clove. Sweet red plum, cherry and spice. Richly textured with lovely minerality. Complex with a long and silky sweet berry finish.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2019 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) is seamless and silken, yet remains focused and knows where it's going. It's rather quiet and Zen in its texture, with a mouthcoating veil of chocolaty tannins and a chalky finish. Delightful cherry fruit meets dried herbs, while the 25% new French oak provides a fragrance of oak and spice, but these elements are all well integrated within the whole package. This was the first time Pyramid Valley brought its Central Otago fruit up from its vineyard (formerly Lowburn Ferry) rather than make the wine in Central.Drinking Window: 2022 - 2032.
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Wine Enthusiast
This may be half the price of Pyramid’s other Pinots, but quality-wise it’s very nearly on par with the single-vineyard stuff. Heady aromas of red currant and rhubarb (with dried herbs and floral notes) open, followed by palate that is lightweight but quite tautly structured, with a welcome tug of spice-flecked tannins. The fruit isn’t as present as one would like, but there’s an overall loveliness and ease about this wine nonetheless.
Other Vintages
2018-
Wilfred
Wong -
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James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker
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Spectator
Wines that breathe of their place: Our story begins in a magical place where magnificent native birds once roamed and soared, where the earth produces in abundance and the stars align for greatness. This unique site of altitude, limestone, slope, rock and rich soil is our Waikari Estate and home to some of the most profound Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines in the world. In 2018 our story breathed a new chapter when we purchased a new vineyard, the Manata Estate in Lowburn, Central Otago. The vineyard has produced exceptional Pinot Noir since 2002 and is home to our Central Otago Pinot Noir. Across both sites biodynamic viticulture and a natural approach to winemaking create handcrafted wine that breathes of its place and tastes like nowhere else on earth.
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.