Tablelands Marlborough Pinot Noir 2016
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Some wines show many faces and so is true for this wonderful Pinot Noir. In its youth, the wine is exhilaratingly fresh with infinite facets of crimson rhubarb, garnet cranberry and bright hibiscus. With age the wine reveals another personality all together. Earthier notes emerge in the background, bringing to mind the smell of cool black soil. However, taking center stage is a soulful bouquet of dried rose, freshly brewed chicory coffee and warm slices of toasted bread slathered in wild cherry preserves. Overall the experience is as if your mouth has been magically transported to the kitchen of some wonderfully rustic farmhouse on an autumn morning. If there ever was a“Breakfast Pinot” this would be it!
What makes Tablelands different? Both Simon and Magnus have family wine in their DNA with a combined 20 years of in depth experience in the US market. Tablelands is named after the Riddiford ancestral home in Martinborough. That combination of New Zealand roots and US expertise gives the Tablelands wine company an edge when communicating to customers in the market. Sophisticated with charming kiwi authenticity.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.