Palliser Estate Pinot Noir is one of our favourites here at Regional, made with hand picked grapes grown on three vineyards in Martinborough - Hua Nui, home block and Pencarrow. Flavours of red fruit, smoky oak, a velvet texture and full body all make this incredibly elegant wine a keeper for up to five years. It also drinks beautifully now with its smooth texture and freshness. 

The grapes were given 5% whole bunch fermentation which adds structure, which is accentuated by French oak aging for 10 months.

Bottled in March 2023.

What the critics say

"Silky, smooth and powerfully elegant Pinot Noir from Palliser Estate."

Joelle Thomson, wine writer and wine programme director for Regional Wines

Provenance is the name of the top Pinot Noir from Big Sky, one of the most spectacularly beautiful wineries in Martinborough. This wine is a stunning expression of New Zealand Pinot Noir at its best; savoury, full bodied and over flowing with gorgeous ripe dark fruit flavours underpinned by firm tannins giving the wine structure and a commanding presence in the glass. 

This is a wine to drink now and cellar into the future. 

The Big Sky story

Jeremy Corban and Katherine Jacobs founded Big Sky Wines in the Te Muna Valley, Martinborough, in 2005. They have since expanded their small vineyard, which is predominantly planted in Pinot Noir and also has a little Sauvignon Blanc, which they give extra textural complexity to with a little time in old oak on lees. 

Commercial description

Upon opening a bottle, swirling the wine in a glass, let it breath in wine speak, and you discover welcoming, uplifting aromas of rich black cherry, dark plum and a subtle herbaceous hint of Vipers Bugloss flowers. Those all together evoke instantly a sensory picture of Central Otago.  The pleasant elusive bouquet uncovered intertwines beautifully with some subtle indication of mocha and spice, even a soupçon of wood smoke. The flavours revealed flow harmoniously onto the palate. The wine is richly textured and discloses an exquisite balance created by sensitive tension between refined acidity and velvety tannins. The warm, rich mouthfeel compliments the interaction between all elements and prolongs to a harmonious silky finish.

Dry, dark and full bodied fleshy black plum flavours with a beautiful silky textured mouthfeel. This single vineyard Pinot Noir is made from  hand picked grapes grown on the Wrekin Vineyard in the Southern Valleys, Marlborough. Most of the grapes were destemmed with a small portion of 15% whole bunches to add structure and weight to the wine, which was fermented warm (up to 31 degrees Celcius) then transferred to French oak, 27% new for 10 months of ageing. This wine has hints of smoky flavour with a rich, dense earthy aroma leading into beautiful dark fruit flavours of plums and black cherries.

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.

This wine is made from Mt Maude Vineyard at the base of Mt Maude in Wanaka, a one hectare site planted at 400 metres elevation and where the grapes are grown without irrigation. This family owned site was planted in three Pinot Noir clones 667, 777 and 115. The wine is made without whole clusters in the ferment and with 18 days of maceration by winemakers Sarah Kate and Dan Dineen. 

It tastes silky, structured, sensitively balanced, long and fresh with great depth of secondary savoury earthy spice flavours married with red fruit and complex notes that will definitely develop further over time, evolving positively. All grapes in this wine were hand harvested and the name Kids Block refers to the owners - Dawn and Terry Wilson’s grandchildren. A row of vines was planted for each grandchild, all planted in 2000 and all in different Dijon Pinot Noir clones. 

Bold, spicy and beautiful Pinot Noir from the deep south made by Matt Connell and Dom and Ally Mondillo, who founded Mondillo Wines. The couple were the first people to plant grapes in Bendigo, one of the most arid, dry sub regions in Central Otago, the world's southernmost wine region. Bendigo is often the first area in the wider region to harvest grapes each year and Dom Mondillo typically ensures that his grapes are 100% destemmed before fermentation. 

This wine was aged for 10 months in French oak, 25% new, which flatters its elegant red fruit flavours, providing silky flavours and textures. This wine drinks well now and will benefit from bottle age of at least four to five years.  

Sam Neill’s latest Pinot Noir is youthful, bright, boldly fruity with firm tannic structure and the ability to age, all of which makes it a good contender for decanting prior to enjoying right now. It’s a complex and interesting Pinot Noir as a blend of Neill’s four small certified organic Central Otago vineyards with 37% from The Fusilier Vineyard in Bannockburn, 7% from the elevated, cool climate of The Last Chance Vineyard in Earnscleugh, Alexandra, 40% from The Red Bank Farm & Vineyard and 22% from The First Paddock in Gibbston. All grapes were hand picked, 54% destemmed and all fermented with wild yeasts. The wine was given 10 months aging in French oak, 18 per cent new. It’s a very good wine and will reward further cellaring.

VINEYARD AND FARMING
Planted in 2002, Doctors Flat is a single 3-hectare vineyard in Bannockburn. The schist subsoil was ground off the Cairnmuir Mountains by glacial ice and deposited here about 480,000 years ago. The glacial action and millennia of weathering have
generated an abundance of clay and fine silt in the vineyard gravel. We know soil texture drives wine texture and this vineyard produces Pinot Noir with density, fine tannin and great texture. We farm organically to help grow and sustain soil biology.
In turn the soil microlife harvest and transport nutrient and minerals to the vine. It’s this connection between vineyard and vine that gives Doctors Flat Pinot Noir its character and sense of place.

WINEMAKING
The winemaking is a simple programme of small open tanks, close attention, minimal inputs and a very light hand in the extraction process with only three punch downs. In 2021 20% of the fruit went directly to tank as whole bunches. Fermentation occurred spontaneously and after 21 to 24 days on skins the wine was drained to French oak barrels (22% new). Malolactic was delayed until spring and SO2 not added until late summer. After a full 12 months in barrel the wine was racked to tank for a second winter, then bottled 20 months after harvest.

Winemaker Rudi Bauer uses winemaking techniques very much in keeping with the practices of the Old World, with an obvious nod to Pinot's spiritual home in Burgundy.

The results are a deep, warm wine with inviting perfumed ripe pinot aromatics, both stylish and emotional. The palate is vibrant and lively with great body and spicy minerality that holds defined tannins of Bendigo intensity.

A steep vineyard in Omihi that was established in 1999 has now been renamed as Damsteep (aptly enough) and is home to the grapes that find their way into this pretty aromatic Pinot Noir with its smooth and savoury flavours of fruity red berries, wrapped in firmly structured earthy notes and a lingering, silky finish. This is a great drink now from a very good vintage for quality and it will age well for up to five years, possibly longer. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered with minimal sulphur.

Full bodied, dry, dark and delicious, this is one of the most structured Pinot Noirs we have in store here at Regional and if you like Pinots that can last the distance, get in quick because it has a big fan club.. The wine is made entirely from hand picked, estate grown grapes, many grown on their own roots (ungrafted) and all benefiting from a dry, windy region where soils are arid and the result is relatively thick skinned berries when it comes to Pinot Noir. The wine is made by a talented team, headed up by Mat Donaldson, whose family are among the earliest pioneers of modern winemaking in North Canterbury and they have deservedly built up a massive following for their outstanding wines, both red and white.

This Pinot is a keeper. Big, bold, dry and elegant right now, it will also age and evolve positively for up to and beyond a decade in a good wine cellar.

This red Burgundy is made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes from the Santenay commune. Supple, lightly structured, fruity and fresh, this elegant wine boasts a fresh and elegant nose with red fruit aromas. The palate is smooth, fruity and vibrant.