Beautiful bright black cherries are captured in a structured full bodied Pinot Noir with delicacy and light notes of earth, spice and summer berries. This is the best Whitehaven Pinot Noir yet, made mostly from grapes grown in Marlborough's Southern Valley sub-region.  A stunner and incredibly good value for money. 

This wine drinks beautifully now (in 2024) and will certainly age well for at least five years. 

Whitehaven Wines began life in 1994 as a romantic business for a couple of corporate escapees, Sue and Greg White, who had given up life in the rat race of Auckland for another kind of life aboard their yacht. When sailing around the country, they took shelter in the Marlborough Sounds from Pacific storms and fell in love with the region. An easy thing to do when harbouring in the spectacularly pristine waters of the Sounds. They decided to settle there on terra firma once more and try their hands at wine production, hiring a winemaker and beginning a business which has now been around for 26 years. Greg has sadly passed away now, leaving a legacy as well as his wife and daughter, Sam, to run the winery. Their winemaker is Peter Jackson.

Cloudy Bay Chardonnay is a savoury and complex wine with bright aromatics and a powerful palate. Notes of citrus rind and stone fruit take the lead in this wine, backed up by nuttiness, excellent minerality and a hint of spice.

Appealingly aromatic, this Pinot Noir reveals notes of Morello cherry and bramble ont he nose. On the palate - fine, silky tannins and juicy acidity provide an elegant structure, with complexity coming from gentle toast and woodsmoke characters.

This wine is a bouquet of summer memories; nashi pear, lemon blossom and elderflower cordial.  The palate hints at sweet basil and thyme with citrus notes and a lingering dry finish.

Vineyard Sites
We have planted our Arneis on a stony section of the Gibson’s Creek vineyard, right in the centre of the Wairau river valley – classic free draining silty, stony terroir hoping to give the wine its signature “wet stone” minerality. The variety is moderately vigorous and needs careful tending, crop thinning, leaf pluck and trimming to maintain vine balance.

Vinification
The grapes were machine harvested in the cool of the morning, cold settled and cool fermented in stainless steel tanks prior to blending and finishing for bottling in spring.

Analysis at bottling

pH 3.11 | TA 6.2 g/l | RS 5.03 g/l | Alc 12.0%

Winemaker Jules Taylor is a champion of adventurous winemaking and grape varieties, such as Gruner Veltliner - and this is a fabulous dry white wine. The Gruner grape originally comes from Austria and is capable of a diverse style of wines, such as this refreshing aromatic and savoury wine. 

Pinot lovers will adore this spicy, earthy and juicy medium bodied Pinot Noir from Marlborough's Southern Valleys, where elevated hillside vineyard sites benefit the early ripening Pinot grape. This is a great red with structure and impressive flavours for drinking now and also for cellaring, if willpower allows.

Flinty, fleshy, full bodied and deliciously dry. Bull Paddock Sauvignon Blanc is one of Marlborough's top expressions of its most planted grape and an outstanding take on Sauvignon with complexity, depth and great length all providing superb drinking now - this wine works in place of a Chardonnay and will appeal to all white wine lovers thanks to its savoury flavour notes with just a mere hint of tropical fruit. This wine is great drinking now, excellent when paired with food and can also age well for up to four to five years. 

Viticulture 

Grapes sourced from our own Fromm Vineyard (5.1%), from Churton Vineyard in the Waihopai Valley (18.8%) and from two sites in the Brancott Valley, Yarrum (25.4%) and Wrekin (50.7%). No herbicides, pesticides or systemic fungicides used. Only approved natural fertiliser applied. All vineyards certified organic (BioGro).  

Winemaking 

Hand-picked between March 16th and 31st. 100% destemmed while retaining a high portion of whole berries. Selected parcels from each vineyard were individually fermented on “wild” yeast and vinified into single vineyard wines, providing the blending components for this Cuvée. Average time on skins between 14 and 28 days. Matured for approximately 14 to 18 months in French oak barrels (less than 10% new). 

Wine facts

Grape variety  Pinot Noir

Bottled   March 2022 under cork at FROMM Winery

Labelled and packed at FROMM Winery

Production  7044 bottles and 18 magnums

Cellaring potential 2036

Winemaker  Hätsch Kalberer

Store   10° – 14° Enjoy   16° – 18° 

Wine analysis  Alcohol   13.5%

Total acidity  4.6 g/l pH   3.63

Residual sugar  less than 1 g/l 

Winemaker’s comments - Dense, deep red colour. The nose is concentrated yet fragrant with dark fruit aromas, complex, focused and very expressive. On the palate again concentration without being heavy. An elegant Pinot Noir with beautiful transparency, excellent structure and tension and very fine tannin support in the finish, reflecting one of our most exciting vintages since 2010. 

Food match - Beautiful with venison, wild game, beef, lamb, vegetarian dishes, cheese and charcuterie, chocolate, raspberries and strawberries.

Our example of the classic Marlborough varietal.

Intensely aromatic with ripe passionfruit, nectarine and citrus.

Fabulous Pinot Noir with amazing depth of flavour especially at this price; a wine that really puts Marlborough's best foot forward thanks to winemaker Rebecca Salmond, who sources grapes from the region's Southern Valleys. Flavours are of ripe cherry, blackberry and spice lead into a lovely, elegant yet weighty palate with superb fruit ripeness and intensity. This wine will continue to age for two years plus and pairs well with lighter red meat dishes.

Commercial description

The ancient, dark-skinned grape variety from Georgia delivers wines that command attention and, at our tiny yield level, devotion. At such concentration, Saperavi with its natural high level of fruit sugar, tannin and acidity turns in a seductive powerhouse like no other wine. Complex, multi-dimensional, structured, and elegant - a wine to truly cherish.

This wine will bring the most critical wine lover to wine heaven. The gorgeous intense, inky colour metamorphoses into a savoury lusciousness. One of the tasting team called it a sexy Georgian in a glass. Deep, rich and packed with black fruit almost jumping out of the glass. Maturing in new barrels refined the powerful tannins to a classy elegance. Rich and complex, multi-layered with an staggering backbone of fruit, acidity and tannin, each sip giving you more and more pleasure. A dazzling wine experience for a wine to cherish. Tasted July 2022.

Beautiful Chaos Pinot Noir embodies a minimalist, mindful way of winemaking. Luscious biodynamic Pinot Noir grapes have been fermented in a small clay amphora pot. The result is an incredibly ethereal and silky expression of Pinot Noir, that is supported by layers of lush red fruits. The wine has been bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Certified organic and biodynamically grown
Suitable for vegetarians and vegans
No dairy products or eggs used during production

Marlborough is white wine country and while it's mostly all about Sauvignon and Chardonnay, this spectacular new dry-ish Riesling is full of deliciously zingy flavours of lemon zest, fresh apples and ripe peach, coupled with an intensely lingering, flavoursome finish.

This wine is intensely aromatic on the palate and has lingering flavours with a crisp dry finish.

The north facing Ashmore Vineyard receives all day sun and that, coupled with cool Marlborough nights, makes for ideal cool climate growing conditions for the Riesling grapes that are grown on the free draining, deep alluvial silt, overlying clay sub soils. Ashmore Vineyard was planted in 1997 with conversion to organics beginning in 2009 and full certification from Bio-Gro in 2012.