Pinot noir from New Zealand: A smooth operator
Victoria Moore says 'Pinot noir from New Zealand’s Marlborough region is inimitable' in her recent article for the Telegraph newspaper (UK)...
"The received wisdom is that the best pinot noir in New Zealand is made amid the dramatic landscapes of Central Otago in the South Island.
It’s certainly a distinctive style: sturdy, powerful, redolent of autumn fruits roasted almost to charring point, with a whisper of the scent of coffee being ground in the room next door.
When I smell a glass, I have instant flashbacks to the day I spent there earlier this year. I remember Nigel Greening driving from me from the tiny airport at Queenstown to his winery, Felton Road, chatting non-stop about hobbits (Lord of the Rings was filmed here), gold fields (“this had more gold than the Klondike and Ukon together”) and the dinosaur bones found buried in the clay. I think of the wild thyme spraying the hillsides green. Of Nigel pointing out of the car window, “Over there, there’s a wilderness the size of Wales with valleys that no one’s been in for 50 or 60 years.” And I think of sitting in the restaurant at nearby Carrick, eating a spicy rare beef Asian-style noodle salad, and noting how brilliantly their confident, layered pinot noir met the food.
All of those images seem to me to fit with the Central Otago fingerprint: plummeting depth, robustness and black cherries.
There are some terrific wines, too. But honestly? If I had to choose one New Zealand region whose pinot noir I would drink for the rest of my life, I think it would actually be Marlborough.
This is, of course, a place that made its name from sauvignon blanc, but there is something about the thought of a good Marlborough pinot noir that makes my stomach do a little twist. Marlborough sauvignon blanc has a luminous quality, and the pinot noir is the same.
It has a fragrance that catches you high on the bridge of your nose. It’s more red cherry than black. It sounds peculiar to say this of a liquid, but it is also incredibly fluent.
“It just feels so effortless, it… glides,” as I said to Cloudy Bay winemaker Nick Lane when I met him in London to talk food and drink the other day.
We’d been happily talking about spearguns (Nick had been given one, for catching fish, for his birthday; “Fortunately my wife confiscated it because by midnight, after a bit of wine, I was quite keen to go and try it out in the yard”) and a mutual liking for drinking aged chardonnay with mushrooms..."
For the full article visit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/8881620/Pinot-noir-from-New-Zealand-A-smooth-operator.html
