Villa Maria Reserve Pinot Noir 2009
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Wine Enthusiast
This is an amply endowed, round wine, with no hard edges. The ripe cherry fruit is dusted with hints of dusty earth and ground cinnamon that linger on the finish. It’s a lush, harmonious mouthful of Pinot pleasure. Drink now–2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aged for 12 months in French barriques, 28% new, the 2009 Reserve Marlborough Pinot Noir casts a medium ruby-purple color, offering notes of wild strawberries and raspberries over a core of Provence herbs, tree bark and mocha. Medium bodied, it gives a great intensity of vibrant red berry flavors with a herbal hint supported by very crisp acid and smooth tannins. It finishes long and purely fruited. Drinking nicely now, it should cellar to 2016+.
Rating: 90+
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2020-
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Founded in 1961 from humble beginnings, Villa Maria is a story of pioneering spirit and a desire to champion the best of New Zealand wine.
From the cool climate region of Marlborough, famous for crisp, refreshing Sauvignon Blanc, to the sun-soaked Hawkes Bay producing world-class reds, their wine is a unique expression of their extraordinary land, passion for excellence and bold spirit.
Their portfolio of highly awarded wines is the most stylistically and regionally diverse in New Zealand, setting them apart and consistently delivering a rewarding wine experience.
As the leading winemakers in Marlborough with an unwavering focus on quality and sustainability, Villa Maria wines are distinctive, vibrant, and most importantly, delicious.
Today, Villa Maria is globally recognized and adored for bold, expressive, and exceptional New Zealand wines.
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.