NOTE ON SHIPPING: This wine is still in barrel, so if you include it in your order, we will wait to send your shipment until after bottling in April 2025

Our Reserve Pinot Noir is hand harvested from our favorite section of Māori Point Vineyard. We have been carefully observing this special area and tasting the wines made specifically from it since 2013, and we now call this area our "Professors' Block". This one-acre block of vines was planted in 2002 with the Pinot Noir types Abel and 10/5, and it consistently creates our most elegant, layered, and long-lived Pinot Noir.

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, other than some precipitation during harvest. Despite lower maximum temperatures, there was moderate overall heat accumulation, and Professors' Block harvest began on April 21. 

TASTING NOTES
The 2023 growing season marked another superb La Nina year. With a small crop and moderate temperature conditions (which continued during the wild fermentations, most fermentation peak temperatures were under 28 deg C, which is low and accentuates delicate aromatics) the result is a wine that shows restraint in its core of dense yet harmonious fruit, floral, and savoury notes. Somewhat shy in its youth, and needing time for integration, the broad spectrum of flavours and persistent finish indicate the promise and future elegance of this wine.

Made by wild yeasts, unfined, unfiltered, vegan friendly, minimal sulfites.