Craggy Range Wairarapa Pinot Noir 2025
£22.45
The wine
A delicate, supple and approachable Pinot Noir with aromas of dried lavender and wild thyme combined with red cherry. On the palate, flavours of crushed raspberry and orange zest are layered with savoury undertones.
Wairarapa is the wider region containing Martinborough, at the southern tip of the North Island where the Rimutaka ranges create a rain shadow and the wind keeps yields naturally low. Pinot Noir here tends to be more savoury and structured than Central Otago's fruit-forward style, and this is the approachable estate bottling.
The producer
Craggy Range Vineyards
View all Craggy Range Vineyards winesCraggy Range was established in 1998 by Terry and Mary Peabody with winemaker Steve Smith MW, and the founding idea was unusual for New Zealand at the time: build the estate around individual vineyards rather than regional blends, in the European manner.
That led them to two very different places. The Gimblett Gravels in Hawke's Bay is a stretch of stony riverbed exposed when the Ngaruroro River changed course in an 1867 flood, worthless for farming but exceptional for vines; the stones radiate heat and drain hard, and it is the one place in New Zealand where Bordeaux varieties and Syrah ripen fully. Te Muna Road in Martinborough is the opposite: cool, windy and elevated, and suited to Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc.
The winery sits in the shadow of Te Mata Peak, and the icon wines take their names from what matters to the family: Le Sol for the soil, Sophia for a daughter, Aroha for the Maori word for love. All three rank among the finest wines made in the country.
