New Pinot Noir introduction sale! Buy a case of our new release 2023 Māori Point Estate Pinot Noir, and receive 12% off - saving you $60. If you're in our wine club, you can apply your membership discount to save even more! 

"A very inviting bouquet of savoury landscape led aromas, dried spices and herbs, ripe red cherry and raspberry scents, plum skin and drying leaves. Complex and engaging. Dry and delicious on the palate, a wine of texture and concentration, soil and mineral, red berry fruits and texture. An abundance of fine polished tannins, a well placed acid line and core fruit flavours combine to lead the expression into a lengthy and fulfilling finish." Cam Douglas, MS (score: 94 points).

94 pts Cam Douglas MS, 5 stars Michael Cooper, 95 pts Sam Kim, 94 pts Raymond Chan. 

GROWING SEASON

The 2023 growing season showed remarkable contrast across New Zealand: while the volatile weather (courtesy of La Nina weather pattern), high precipitation and cyclones were devastating Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, Central Otago enjoyed almost ideal growing conditions, apart from some precipitation during harvest. Despite lower maximum temperatures, there was moderate overall heat accumulation, and Pinot Noir harvest began early again for us, on April 4. However, the crop was notably smaller than in 2022, and the grapes showed excellent overall ripeness at lower brix accumulation.  

VINEYARD & WINERY PRACTICES

We believe wine should express where and when it is grown and made. We follow organic principles and then proceed further, nurturing the soil and indigenous microflora by making our own compost and planting native vegetation. Vine pruning, leaf pulling, straightening shoots, and harvesting are all done by hand. At least fourteen different areas of the vineyard are harvested and fermented individually in our winery that is adjacent to the vines. Small fermentations by native yeasts, worked by hand and exposed to ambient temperatures, articulate different facets of vineyard and vintage. Malolactic fermentation occurs naturally during the eleven months the wine is in barrel (primarily French oak, 22% new). We rack once in summer, use minimal sulfites, and do not fine or filter. 

TASTING NOTES

The 2023 growing season was close to optimal. With a small crop and moderate temperature conditions (which continued during the wild fermentations; most fermentation peak temperatures were under 28 deg C, a bit lower than usual). The result is a wine that begins with elegant restraint in its flavours of dusty dark cherries and raspberries, earthy forest floor, and dried herbs. Yet on the palate, the wine reveals some darkly brooding roasted notes, with fleeting glimpses of minerality and pithy bitterness. Over time, as it integrates, that complexity and brooding character will complement the harmonious elegance it already possesses, and ultimately yield a wine that despite its delicacy may echo the much heralded yet similarly brooding 2013 vintage.