This is one of our best Pinot Noirs under $25 and consistently exceptional drinking at this price, thanks to fruit forward flavours of red cherries which are underpinned by refreshing acidity kept in balance by an under tow of savoury, earthy flavours. 

It's made by Martinborough winemaker John Douglas, who owns a small vineyard on Te Muna Road, 9 kilometres west of Martinborough village. This four hectare plot of organically certified vineyard land is home to the grapes that go into this excellent Pinot Noir, which over delivers on value, flavour and style.

Te Muna Valley has the same stony soils as vineyards the better known  vineyards around Martinborough village. It also has a slightly windier, slightly cooler climate, both factors that combine to make for challenges in the volume of grapes produced but exceptional depth of flavour in the great wines from this valley. 

A full bodied, savoury Pinot Noir with appealing layers of red fruit flavours, which  drinks well now and can age superbly for the next four to five years. This is smooth, savoury and complex in flavour with layers of red fruit, tangy freshness from bold acidity that is held in balance by weight and texture. 

Beautifully expressive, rich and opulent from an excellent growing season. Generous fruit concentration with a core of bright red and dark berry fruits balanced with freshness and a touch of spice and earthiness. Fine grained tannins sit in the background with the fruit and hints of savoury spice remaining.

Made from our organically managed vineyard at Bendigo, Central Otago with minimal filtration and no fining agents resulting in some natural sediment at the bottom of the bottle.

Kotinga is one of four single vineyard Pinot Noirs made by Ata Rangi from 2020; a great year which was dry and warm with a long autumn and was also the first time single vineyard wines were produced in this way. 

This bright fruit scented wine is made from the Dijon Pinot Noir clones of 115, 667 and 777, which give it aromas of cherry, red currant and plum stone, which set the scene on the nose. The palate opens with a flourish of supple tannins uplifted with fluid acidity. Flavours of grapefruit and juniper spread through to the end of the palate.

Aged in a 2280 litre foudre (very large oak barrel) instead of the traditional 228 litre barrique, to highlight and retain the bright crunchy qualities of Dijon clones grown on gravels. This is a delightful wine and unique expression of Martinborough that is playful now and will also reward cellaring.

Tasting Note: Deep and complex bouquet of red cherry and sweet raspberry, pomegranate and hints of fresh zesty blood orange. Full-bodied yet extremely elegant, fine-grained but present tannins, minerally, youthful acidity and hints of Five Spice and a deep core of cool, vibrant fruit, lovely length, and persistence. Cellar 12 to 18 years.

Winemaking Notes: Harvested 9th April 2016, bottled 15th February 2018. Hand-picked and carefully selected 100% Abel Clone Pinot Noir grapes. All de-stemmed, cold-macerated and fermented in small batch stainless steel vats and left on grape skins for 4 weeks. Aged in 100% new French oak barriques of the Bourgogne Tonnelleries Rousseau, Remond and Meyrieux for 20 months. No fining and only light filtration before bottling.

“With a slew of red-berry and spicy nuances, this is a super-elegant pinot noir with very fine tannins that are now almost perfectly resolved. Extremely long, polished and mineral finish of the kind you expect from Grand Cru red Burgundy with some age. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.” – James Suckling, January 2022

“Plenty of spiciness to the hibiscus, ripe-cherry, strawberry, oyster, mushroom and earth aromas. Smoky, too. Full and dense. Then it changes to dried cherries with some citrus, closing up nicely with freshness and intensity. Needs time to open. First bottling of this. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold. Better after 2024.” – James Suckling, October 2022

Certification: Organic

Alcohol: 14.0%

Variety: Pinot Noir

Region: Wairarapa, New Zealand

The inaugural Valli Pisa Pinot Noir comes from Highgrange Vineyard, an elevated site on Mt. Pisa. The nose is immediately seductive with aromas of damson plum, dark cherry, red pear, and ripe raspberry, complemented by savoury notes of wild sage and cedar, with a wisp of white blossom. The palate is silky and rich with wonderful layers of red fruit and spice woven together by an abundance of fine tannin and bright acidity.

The wine is assertive yet playful and will continue to develop for well over adecade.

100% handpicked and 28% whole bunch.

Aged for 11 months in 20% new oak.

Stunning Pinot Noir from Waitaki Valley in North Otago, New Zealand.

Tasting Note: Intense aromas of blueberries, cherry and spices. Floral, herbal and forest floor notes bring complexity and elegance. The tannins are firm yet fresh makingfor real elegance.

Valli Bannockburn Pinot Noir is made with grapes grown on the Hall Vineyard, which was planted in 2000 in Bannockburn at 350 metres above sea level. This area has a semi continental climate. It is planted with six different clones of Pinot Noir: 777, 115, 10/5, UCD5, 113 and 13. The soils here are wind blown loess over schist bedrock. They are deep, moderately sandy and free draining. The vines are cane pruned and grow on a vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellis.

Valli Wines was founded by Central Otago winemaker Grant Taylor in 1998 and has since become one of the most collectible Pinot Noir brands in New Zealand with four distinctly different Pinot Noirs made every year from four key sub regions in Central Otago. Grant is the only winemaker producing a consistently diverse range of wines every vintage with each wine made the same way so that the wines each express the climate and soil variations in the areas from which they come from.

The four Valli Pinot Noirs

The four sub regions that winemaker Grant Taylor makes Pinot Noir from each year encompass widely varying landscapes, soil types and climates from the maritime influenced weather in the Waitaki Valley Vineyard on the ironically named Grant's Road; a site that Grant Taylor owns, through to the semi continental climates of Gibbston, Bannockburn and Bendigo. 

Bendigo

Valli Bendigo Pinot Noir is made from grapes grown on the Chinaman's Terrace Vineyard in Bendigo, Central Otago. This elevated vineyard was planted in 2005 between 314 metres and 374 metres above sea level with five different Pinot Noir clones; Abel, 115, UCD5, 667 and 777. The soils are shallow sandy loams with a high clay content and also include a small lower section with gravel soils.  Bendigo has a semi continental, arid climate. The vines are cane pruned and grow on a vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellis.

Bannockburn

Valli Bannockburn Pinot Noir is made with grapes grown on the Hall Vineyard, which was planted in 2000 in Bannockburn at 350 metres above sea level. This area has a semi continental climate. It is planted with six different clones of Pinot Noir; namely, 777, 115, 10/5, UCD5, 113 and 13. The soils here are wind blown loess over schist bedrock. They are deep, moderately sandy and free draining. The vines are cane pruned and grow on a vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellis.

Gibbston Valley

Valli Gibbston Pinot Noir is made with grapes grown on the Gibbston Highway, which were planted between 1999 and 2000 at between 343 and 351 metres above sea level. The Pinot Noir clones on this site are 777, 115, UCD5 and 114. Soils are alluvial loess which ranges from 0.5 to 1 metre deep over firm river gravels.

Rainfall is lower here than in Bannockburn and Bendigo. The climate is considered semi continental. The vines are cane pruned and grow on a vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellis.

Waitaki Valley

Valli Waitaki Pinot Noir is made with grapes grown on Grant's Road in the Waitaki Valley, a maritime influenced climate planted between 2004 and 2005 at 200 metres above sea level on limestone based soils. River gravels also make up some of the soil type here and vines are cane pruned and grow on a vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellis.

2024 ORATERRA PINOT NOIR 

SEASON BRIEF FOR 2024 The 2024 season was a contrast to 2023, coming with a sting - or in this case, a grand finale - at the end. It was a splendid season, and the general feeling is that 2024 will be remembered alongside 2013, 2001 and 1998 as an outstanding year. A cool and turbulent spring meant that the fruit set was reduced, and thus the potential yield at harvest was down too. However, summer conditions were nothing short of amazing, the sun was out in full force, with very little rainfall. The key to the success was our vineyard management this year by keeping ample shade and leaf cover to lower vineyard temperatures and conserve water. The extended warm and dry weather periods resulted in wines that have retained freshness with good generosity. 

TASTING NOTE Beautiful vintages like 2024 risk losing a certain hook, or friction, in the wine. By picking early we avoided this risk and were able to retain good acidity and a degree of disposition to provide interest in the wine. Dark and bright fruit are the antagonists, with Morello cherry cutting through the riper characters. This Pinot Noir goes beyond typical varietal qualities to offer an array of complex and inviting aromatics. The wine is rounded and softly cushioned, moving effortlessly over the palate, with soft tannins acting as chaperones and guiding the fruit toward each corner of the mouth. Ageing: Age for 10-15 years Enjoy at a temperature of 18°C-20°C 

WINEMAKING We harvest all our fruit by hand into small tubs. The fruit is sorted the following day, cold, fully destemmed into small ferment vessels. Natural fermentation occurs, with an occasional hand plunge to help keep the ferments happy and homogenous. At around 18 - 24 days in the fermenting vessel, we pressed the wines and transferred them to large format barrels, 300 & 500 litres, for 12-18 months. The wine is racked and blended into stainless steel tanks before bottling without fining or filtration. 

TECHNICAL INFORMATION Vineyard source(s): McCreanor Vineyard, 37 Princess Street & La Belle Vie Vineyard, 115 New York Street, Martinborough, NZ Harvest dates: 8-18 March 24 | Harvest Brix: 21.5 - 24 Brix Alcohol by Volume: 13% | pH 3.68 | TA: 5.2 g/l

Biodynamic Pinot Noir from the Pisa Range in Central Otago. This is Burgundy meets Otago in style, with dark cherries and herbal spice notes on the nose and a medium palate of further dark cherries, licorice spice and nutty oak elements. Acid, tannins and fruit all in balance and delivered in a lush velvet mouthful.

Pair with duck, pork beef and lamb over the next four years.

This is a beautifully silky smooth Central Otago Pinot Noir made entirely from estate grown fruit at a small vineyard in Bendigo, one of the warmest corners (and often the first to harvest) in Central Otago. This wine comes from one of the driest, most settled vintages, weather-wise, in the past five years, and those qualities translate through to an intensely aromatic Pinot, driven by fresh floral notes and ripe dark cherry flavours in a silky textured wine. This wine is great value and super tasty.

The name Ballasalla comes from a village on the Isle of Man where one of the winery's founders, Tim Kerruish, was born. 

A soft, smooth, spicy Pinot Noir with red fruit flavours, a medium body and lithe mouthfeel. This Pinot Noir is Margrain's entry level Pinot and is made with grapes grown south of Martinborough village on a terrace vineyard site on stony soils. It offers good value for money from one of the country's leading Pinot Noir regions. 

Great Central Otago Pinot Noir from the most experienced viticulturist-winemaker team, brothers James and Matt Dicey. This pair have produced this wine with a blend of grapes grown on the Inlet Vineyard (60%) and Black Rabbit Vineyard (40%).

The wine is fleshy and full bodied with bright fresh fruit flavour to the forefront of each succulent sip; indigenous yeast fermentation took place with 2% whole clusters, 98% destemmed and 23 days on skins followed by ageing of 12 months in barrel, 21% new oak. 

The wine contains 14.3% ABV and was bottled unfined but filtered. 

The new Dicey Wine brand is the brainchild of the well experienced Dicey brothers, Matt and James, whose parents were among the pioneers of viticulture and winemaking in Bannockburn, Central Otago, when they co-founded Mt Difficulty Wines. 

Amisfield wines began life on the shores of beautiful Lake Hayes, which remains home to this brand's cellar door and restaurant while the majority of grapes grown for these wines are now in the Cromwell Basin, most notably in Pisa which is where the winery production takes place. Ths wine is made from hand harvested grapes, which are treated to a natural ferment (no added yeasts) with approximately 10% whole bunchclusters added and maturation for 15 months in 20% French oak. This Pinot Noir is dry, full bodied and smooth with elegant spicy notes. It drinks well now and can definitely age well for the medium to long term; up to and beyond 10 years.

Botanical notes, blood, umami, and hints of brown sugar and bran. With time, the young oak will integrate seamlessly, unveiling layers of cedar-like Canadian maple, savory tobacco, walnut oil, and sage leaf. A spice box of depth and complexity
awaits, echoing the essence of our earlier wines. The texture recalls our clay soils; while the minerality from stones may be subtle, it frames the wine’s length and serves as the skeleton beneath the fruit. There’s a grunt of dehydrated zest and a
flourish of blossom flowers. Picture it in shades of blue rather than red—absolutely gorgeous.

95+pts – Wine Advocate
95pts – The Real Review