Felton Road Bannockburn Pinot Noir 2023

Felton Road Bannockburn Pinot Noir, Central Otago, New Zealand, 2023

Grape: 100% Pinot Noir, hand picked, natural yeast fermentation using 20% whole cluster fruit. Aged for 13 months in 25% new French oak barrels from artisan Burgundian coopers. No fining or filtering. Vine age: 7-27 years.

Felton Road farms four properties totalling 32 ha in the Bannockburn sub-region of Central Otago. This wine is a blend from all four vineyards; Cornish Point, Calvert, MacMuir and The Elms.

A strict 100% estate policy with fully organic and biodynamic viticulture ensures that fruit arrives at the winery as pure as it can be, while the entire estate comes as close to true sustainability as is possible. A commitment to hands off winemaking: gravity flow, wild yeasts, wild malolactic, an avoidance of fining and filtration all help preserve the wine's expression of its terroir.

Winemaker's Tasting Note:

A vivid nose of deep florals: dark roses, violets, and an undertow of ripe red fruit. The palate really shows the best of each vineyard that makes up the cuvée. A pure but powerful drive of fruit on a perfect cusp of ripeness, with complex notes of sandalwood and spice. This is all about harmony and balance with the transparency of fruit allowing the detail to shine through. Silken tannins finish the package.

Critics' Tasting Notes:

"Vibrant and youthful core of red fruits lead the bouquet, layered with scents of clay and stone, fresh wild flowers of the forest, a mix of spices from fruit and barrel and a layer of lees complexity adding depth and style. Definitively new, taut, dry and young on the palate with a youthful squeeze and salivation from tannins and acidity. At the centre of this wine are the flavours of red fruits from raspberry to cherry begin to show as the wine opens out on palate. Dry, lengthy and very new with best drinking from 2028 through 2038."

95/100 points (Outstanding), Cameron Douglas MS, November 2024

"A gorgeous nose of meltingly sweet berry fruit from raspberry and boysenberry to black cherry, sitting under a cloud of youthful wood, red dates, Indian spice and dried thyme. The flavour-packed palate is neatly tapered with very young, squeaky tannins which provide grain and texture to the otherwise decadent raspberry stripe of fruit. An expanding touch of earthy spice carries some warmth on the finish as it gives way to a deeper, brooding aspect. There is a hidden power and darkness within which is waiting to emerge."

 95/100 points, Stephen Wong, The Real Review, October 2024

Also awarded 92/100 points, The Wine Front, October 2024

Try this wine with lamb samosas or a Massaman duck curry.