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Escarpment Pinot Noir highlights Martinborough's unique terroir and winemaking philosophy, soundly revealed in this blend of Pinot Noir parcels from across this beautifully well-suited cool climate district.

The 2022 Escarpment Martinborough Pinot Noir is an assemblage of the best Pinot Noir vineyards across the district, with 75% of the grapes from the Te Muna Road sub region. The fruit was hand harvested and crushed to open top fermenters, with minimal intervention until it was pressed. Plunged just once a day for gentle extraction and then left to macerate on skins for an average vat time of 25 days. It has been aged in French oak barriques (27% new) for 11 months followed by a further 9 months in stainless steel tanks before bottling without fining or filtration.


A savoury expression of Pinot Noir showcasing fresh earth, spice, orange rind and bay leaves. The wine expresses the elegance of the 2022 vintage with a palate that is bright and juicy.

Barrel fermented, dry style of Pinot Blanc which is aged for 11 months. What more could you ask for in an alternative white wine from Te Muna Road in Martinborough? Winemaker Larry McKenna models this Pinot Blanc on the great dry whites of Germany's Kaiserstuhl district where spicy wines are made to complement rich food. 

This wine is made from vines planted in 1999 on Te Muna Road in Martinborough. It's bone dry with less than one gram of residual sugar and the finished wine spent 11 months aging in barrel prior to bottling. It can age for up to five years and drinks well now too. 

From an exceptional single site on Te Muna Road, the estate grown Pahi Vineyard is an individual site selection Pinot Noir sourced from designated rows on the famed Martinborough Terrace.

94 Points – James Suckling review

So floral, with cranberry and orange peel aromas that follow through to a medium body with sliced orange and peach flavours. Crunchy and delicious. So fresh and yummy. Some whole bunch fermentation.

94 Points Huon Hooke, The Real Review

Medium-full red with purple rim and reserved, shy aromas in the earthy/forest undergrowth and walnut spectrum. A patina of smoky oak too. The wine is rich and full in the mouth, with volume and amplitude. A deep and fleshy wine with loads of extract to match the intense flavours and big structure. Long, long finish. Serious pinot: long-term potential but also really appealing right now. It could cope with heartier meat dishes.

95 Points Cameron Douglas MS

This wine delivers complexity, a sense of site and vintage as well as complexity and power. Aromas and flavours of spiced berries, plum and barrel;  polished tannins and acidity framing the texture of this wine with flavours of plum and red berries, cherry and rose that follow. There’s a fine chalk dust residue on the finish that delivers more mouthfeel and carries extra flavour. A delicious wine. I enjoyed a glass of this with a smoke salmon and red beet risotto with lashing of parmesan cheese - a wonderful match. Best from late 2027 through 2034.

"Pahi has a long track record and is arguably the most impressive Pinot Noir in the Escarpment stable today." Joelle Thomson, 2023

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.

This barrel fermented Pinot Gris is a great alternative to Chardonnay, which was inspired by the classical French approach to Pinot Gris, using lees stirring and partial malolactic fermentation to add texture, weight and dryness to burn. 

This wine is made from 100% Martinborough grapes, all grown on Te Muna Road, 9 kilometres east of the township on a vineyard first planted in 1999.

Winemaker Larry McKenna recommends cellaring it for up to five years - or enjoy right now. 

Inspired by the elegant dry pink wines of Provence in southern Franc, this rose is made in Martinborough from one of New Zealand's top Pinot Noir producers, the Escarpment Vineyard.  It is dry with summer berry aromas and a lively lingering finish. 

Larry McKenna loves a Chardonnay made in a fresh, crisp style with creamy texture but balanced by bright acidity, a medium to full body and a long finish. So, if big buttery Chardonnays are your thing, this wine will meet your hopes in a textural fashion. Which is another way of saying, try this great white made in a fresh style.

It's made from grapes grown on Te Muna Road, Martinborough, which were planted in 1999. The wine goes through malolactic fermentation with lees stirring to enhance texture and it aged for 11 months in French oak, 20% of it new.

A textural style Sauvignon that is layered and complex, with a racy mineral backbone, thanks to the alluvial gravels of the Martinborough terrace and the unique growing conditions of Martinborough.

W I N E M A K E R S   N O T E 

From the exceptional 2024 vintage this is our first release of Sauvignon Blanc under the Escarpment label. Fermentation was conducted in a range of stainless-steel tanks, along with 20% in French Oak puncheons, 2% of the blend in new oak and a small portion fermented on skins. A mix of indigenous and inoculated yeast were used. Aged for 6 months before bottling.  This is a Sauvignon that showcases sophistication and texture, along with a limey/mineral backbone that gives great length and purity, and a moreish finish that will have you reaching for another glass.

T A S T I N G 

Gooseberry, nettle and guava are accompanied by lifted white floral notes, with the fruit sitting in the tropical spectrum. The palate is hinged together by textural elements that are balanced by restrained, but intense, fruit weight. There is a lovely seam of limey acidity that brings drive and offers a long lingering finish to the wine. It showcases the minerality and purity we get in white wines grown on the alluvial gravels.

The Equilibrium Pinot Noir is 100% grown Wairarapa Pinot Noir from Te Muna Valley in Martinborough

In classic Te Muna fashion, this is all about notes of dark cherry, plum, blackberry, violet and rose, followed by spices, chocolate and vanilla, with well-integrated young tannins and a long, persistent finish.

Earthy notes and freshly crushed forrest leaves lead the aromas in this complex and smooth Pinot Noir from Johner Estate winery in the central Wairarapa. This is an outstanding wine with depth and richness providing a plush mid palate texture to this lively, lovely wine. Drink now or cellar for five to six years+.

Akitu A1 has all the bells and whistles of great Pinot Noir with seductive red floral and fruity aromas leading into a full bodied, silky and structured wine with 40% whole bunch fermentation and five different clones of Pinot Noir adding complexity. The dominant clone in the blend is Abel (a clone is a variation of a grape variety), which lends this Pinot its impressive structure and a silky mouthfeel. It goes without saying that it takes a warm year and ripe grapes to include a high proportion of whole bunches in the fermentation tank, stalks and all. This wine benefits from its high portion of whole bunches and is possibly the best A1 from Akitu yet. A modest 20% new French oak was used to mature the wine. This lends it weight, smoothness and a soft mouthfeel while allowing the fruit to remain in second place after the charry complexity.

The home of Akitu 

Andrew Donaldson planted his vineyard with 100% Pinot Noir in 2002 and has since developed three distinctive styles of wine from this great red grape variety. Two reds (Akitu A 1 and Akitu A2) lead the production while a Pinot Blanc is now part of the high quality stable of wines from this producer. 

Donaldson employs winemaker P J Charteris to make the wines. 

At Mt Barker, in New Zealand's South Island, in a high glacial valley of sunshine and rain shadow on the edge of the earth, each season leave its own vivid imprint on our vintage.  Extreme temperature variations, alpine air, altitude, adversity... all the wild elements of this exhilarating land combine in a Pinot Noir of great quality from the world's southernmost wine region.

Dry, savoury and earthy style of Pinot Noir with delicacy and power from grapes grown on Craggy Range's windswept and beautiful Te Muna Road vineyard, 9 kilometres east of the Martinborough village. 

Hand picked grapes from the Te Muna Vineyard were fermented in a combination of French oak cuves and open top stainless steel tanks with indigenous yeasts. The finished wine was matured in French oak barriques, 22% new, for 10 months. No fining but a coarse filtration results in a satisfyingly savoury dry Pinot with tension and backbone. A stunner now and for the cellar. 

This Pinot Noir is one of our favourites and comes from Wellington's closest wine region, the Wairarapa; Gladstone, to be precise, where winemaker Karl Johner has what you might call a foot in both camps. The German born winemaker produces wine at his winery in Gladstone in the New Zealand summer. In our winter, he hot foots it back to Germany to work harvest at his winery there.

The wines from both places are classic, elegant expressions of aromatic grape varieties; high points are Pinot Noir, Riesling and Pinot Gris; made in a range of styles.

This Pinot Noir is a dry, medium bodied, earthy and smooth. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. This wine ticks the vegan friendly box.

Saddleback Pinot Noir is named after the bold and beautiful South Island Saddleback, a native bird to New Zealand. And the wine is also a bold one, representing a fruity expression of Pinot Noir from Central Otago. It's a blend of grapes from the region, including 39% Pinot Noir from Bendigo, 50% from Pisa and 11% from the Gibbston Valley, home to the winery's cellar door. 

This soft and fresh Pinot Noir is made from 100% destemmed grapes which were aged for 10 months in French oak.

It's made to drink now and in the next two to three years. 

One of our favourite under $25 Pinot Noirs in store with its medium body and beautiful ripe red fruit aromas, earthy depth of flavour and impressive tannic structure thanks to Martinborough's dry, windy climate. This wine is good value and a clean, fresh style of Pinot.Luna Estate makes three Pinot Noirs, two single vineyards called Eclipse and Luna and this lovely refreshing estate blend. 

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.

This Pinot Noir is from block with clay soil, which is planted in 2003. This wine shows full of charming red to dark fruits. A very charming wine to go with food.

We think these wines offer exceptionally good value for money and this Marlborough Pinot Noir offers a super tasty expression of Pinot with notes of complex earthy flavours as well as appealing red fruit and the balance of crisp acidity providing a lingering finish.

The name Kōparepare is Maori for gift and $1 from every bottle of wine is donated to LegaSea, a not for profit organisation set up by the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council in 2012 to raise awareness of the marine environment and inspire public support.

The wines are made by Whitehaven in Marlborough, which was founded by Greg and Sue White in 1994 after they sailed into the Marlborough Sounds to shelter from a storm in the early 1990s and fell for the natural beauty of the region and the haven it provided. 

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

You could say this is the ultimate insider's wine. It's a new brand made by highly experienced Marlborough winemaker William Hoare, who was the original winemaker and then GM at Fromm. Novum is his new brand. It is named after the Roman word 'novum', meaning new. The grapes are from Dog Point's Settlement Vineyard, which is certified organic. It's tight, youthful, medium bodied, silky in texture and will age superbly.

Luscious, deep-fruit aromas of red cherries and raspberries rise from the glass. The palate is crisply layered and mouth filling with fine tannins. Ripe red fruit obtains complexity from hints of spicy characters, tea leaf and earth. The texture has sophistication and elegance, being sumptuous and refreshing at the same time.

Fruit aromas of blackcurrant, dark cherries and plums unfold from the glass, combined with hints of dried herbs. The palate is very complex and enticing with a beautiful, smooth texture and a firm structure. Flavours of very ripe fruit, minerals, subtle leafiness and rosewood. The supporting role of the oak intensifies underlying dark chocolate and toasty characters.

This is an excellent value Wairarapa Pinot Noir. The grapes are carefully selected to create a great New Zealand Pinot with a medium body and a fruit forward and complex palate.