Escarpment fashions Pinot Noir from the Martinborough district in New Zealand. Part of our ethos is to explore boundaries and create wines of interest and complexity.

W I N E M A K E R S   N O T E

The Noir label brings together over three decades of wine making experience, creating a soft, bright, fruit forward wine which can be enjoyed immediately or will cellar successfully for several years. Made using traditional techniques from fruit grown on the Martinborough terrace. The fruit was destemmed into open top vessels and fermented using indigenous yeast. After an average vat time of 20 days the wine was pressed off and aged in predominately older French barriques for 10 months. Bottled without fining or filtration, the resulting wine is a blend of 24 individual parcels. Structure and texture sit perfectly with ripe fruit flavours and gentle tannins that combine with intriguing complexity. Enjoy with many types of cuisine or cellar confidently for up to 5 years.

T A S T I N G 

Bright ruby red in colour, the wine opens with lifted perfume and fresh summer berries. An elegant vintage has given us softness and focus. It is very fragrant and attractive with fresh red berries, underpinned with turned earth, subtle spice and savoury notes, which add to complexity. The fresh berries continue on the palate with ripe cranberry, fresh cherry and strawberry, creating a bright vibrancy and crunchie freshness. Soft, fine-grained tannin also intertwine on the palate, creating texture and poise. This is an attractive wine that is immediately appealing but will also reward with a few years in the cellar. Serve at 16°C and enjoy with any red meat and rich pasta dishes, or as a perfect accompaniment to a barbeque.

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.

Pinot Noir is the jewel in the crown of the evocatively named Mount Beautiful Wines and this producer makes several different styles.

This is the signature wine, made in the highest volumes and from a very different vintage; 2018, which was warmer, more humid and earlier than any other year on record with hand harvesting of the grapes starting 10 days earlier than usual on 21 March. For the 2018 vintage, 100% of the grapes were destemmed and the wine was gently plunged twice daily. This PInot Noir was aged in French oak, 20% new, for 11 months.

It's a ripe, fruit driven Pinot Noir with earthy flavours and represents great value for money.

Framingham Pinot Noir puts the silkiest foot forward for Marlborough Pinot with its seductively smooth textural qualities balanced beautifully by depth of red and dark cherry, plum and spice notes. 

Alsace is the leading region for organically certified wines in France and this impressive newcomer to our shelves also puts Pinot Noir's best foot forward. Made from old vines and aged in century-old oak barrels, it is a full bodied wine with rich depth of flavour and it can take on substantial food flavours from gamey meat dishes to soft ripe cheese. 

The wine is named after the village Mittelbergheim where limestone slopes favour healthy vines. 

This wine is sealed with a screw cap to retain its freshness.

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

Smooth, supple and savoury Pinot Noir that also ticks the certified organic box. This wine offers awesome value for money and is made entirely from Mount Edward's estate owned vineyards. All grapes in this wine were destemmed, fermented with wild yeasts and the wine was aged in French oak. Bottling was without fining and filtration.
 

Taka K is the brainchild of Japanese born, North Canterbury based winemaker Takahiro Koyama, who has launched this fabulous new expression of Pinot Noir from the windy climate of Canterbury. Hot days, cool nights and thoughtful winemaking combine in this wine which has a medium body and intense flavours of smoked mushrooms, wild earth and a hint of thyme beautifully intermingled with red cherry aromas and dense plummy softness. 

Like diving into a velvet cushion in the glass. Need we say more.

The grapes in this wine were grown on an organically farmed vineyard on the eastern side of the Waipara Valley, North Canterbury. The vineyard has clay rich soil with a limestone influence and is undergoing transition to become certified organic. All grapes were fermented in open top fermenters with wild yeasts followed by ageing in French Oak barrels (no new oak) for about 10 months, then racked and blended into stainless steel tanks prior to the bottling without any fining or filtration.

The total production was 560 cases.

From Jules Taylor...

Pinot Noir is the rising star of Marlborough and the variety that most expresses the differences from season to season. Grown on the southern hills in clay soils, this Pinot is well rounded with oh-so juicy flavours of cherry and black Doris plum. The wild fermentation along with extended lees maturation have added complexity and texture to the dark fruits and the finish is dry with a nice touch of dark chocolate and spice.

ABOUT THIS WINE: Spicy, dark fruits and with integrated French oak meets ripe plum, balanced smooth tannins and subtle earthy notes. A complex and focused Nelson Pinot Noir.
VINEYARD: Upper Moutere, Nelson , New Zealand. Tarakona (Dragonfly, or Dragon) Block. Planted 2005. 2.0ha. Ancient Moutere alluvium clay soils, featuring deeply weathered and dissected gravels.

WINEMAKING
? grapes were gently hand-harvested, days apart to ensure maximum ripeness and quality
? lightly crushed and destemmed fruit was held in open top vessels for around six days
? the must was slowly warmed and inoculated with specifically selected yeasts, with some left to ferment with ?wild? yeast naturally found on the
grapes.
? warm temperatures fermentation of up to 35C? and an extended maturation period on skins allowed for a gentle extraction of colour and
tannin
? the wine was developed in French oak barriques before secondary malolactic fermentation
? Bottled early March 2020 without fining 4456 bottles produced

VITICULTURE
? unsettled weather over flowering resulting innlower yields overall
? later on the very warm and dry summer months provided ideal growing conditions
? a successful harvest period with grapes picked at optimal ripeness and outstanding flavour profile

TASTING NOTE
? A vibrant ruby red hue in the glass
? dark fruits , integrated French oak, bright floral notes on the nose
? a palate of ripe plum, subtle earthy notes and balanced smooth tannins

Certified organic grapes were used to make this new 2019 Pinot Noir from Churton Estate's second generation of winemakers, Ben and Jack Weaver. Fermentation was with indigenous yeasts and the result is a youthful, fruity Pinot with a lively flavours and a light to medium body. It's a great wine to drink lightly chilled in summer or as a light bodied winter red. Satisfying, refreshing and with complex notes; a lovely Marlborough Pinot Noir. 

Churton founder and winemaker Sam Weaver cut his teeth on the classic wines of the world while working in fine wine retail in the United Kingdom. His background is in microbiology and he was raised on a farm, so when he and his wife Mandy founded Churton Estate, it combined all of his passions. The couple and their adult sons, have created one of this country's most high quality small wineries, which lives up to the dream of creating 100% estate grown grapes, 100% certified organic production and 100% bottled on site, nearly all of the wines without fining or filtration. All grapes are hand picked and natural yeasts ferment the majority of Churton wines. These incremental qualitative decisions impact at every step of their winemaking provides exceptional quality grapes which in turn express themselves in outstanding wines.

The Natural State wines are the brainchild of second generation family winemakers, Ben and Jack Weaver.

TASTING NOTE
This is a highly concentrated Pinot Noir from low yielding vines. This single vineyard wine displays rich dark fruit aromas of cherries and plums together with smoky and earthy undertones. Full bodied with immense depth of fruit flavours layered with forest floor complexity and great tannin structure. The densely layered palate of this wine shows all the complexity and richness of flavours making it ripe yet elegant wine with great structure and a juicy finish.

WINEMAKING
Ripe fruit was hand harvested and completely destemmed, but not crushed, with the aim of achieving a significant percentage of intact berries in the ferment. Grapes were put on cold soak for 4-5 days prior to undergoing wild fermentation. The wine remained on skins post fermentation to optimise tannin extraction whilst locking in the deep, ruby colour. This wine was drained and pressed and then aged in old French barriques for nine months during which time it underwent a complete malolactic fermentation. In pursuit of the highest quality this wine has not been fined.

FOOD MATCHING
Serve alongside a roasted beef or lamb and dark rich gravy and mushrooms. These dishes will complement the rich flavours and complexity of this wine.

CELLARING POTENTIAL
Crafted to be enjoyed within 3-5 years of vintage date.

Beautifully expressive Marlborough Pinot Noir driven by red berry fruit aromas that intermingle seamlessly with earthy, savoury flavours in a medium bodied, firmly structured wine.  

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

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. 

Smooth with rustic aromatics and black cherry flavours.

Boasting concentrated flavour while retaining the delicate nature that the varietal is known for, the bouquet opens with deep, rustic notes of cigar box and wild mushroom and develops gentle highlights of cranberry as it sits. On the palate, vivid black cherry notes up front lend a nice acidity and complement warm allspice undertones with mild tannins.