Neudorf Moutere Home Block Pinot Noir 2022
£36.45
The wine
Nelson lends itself to sophisticated, savoury Pinot Noir, and this is a gentle and graceful example. Vanilla, violets and pink peppercorns are woven with pomegranate, blueberries and soft acidity. Fine, cocoa-like tannins tie it together with elegance and purity, and there are brooding, earthy nuances throughout.
Home Block is the original 1978 planting on Moutere clay, and the Pinot Noir from it is the estate's most serious red. Nelson lends itself to sophisticated, savoury Pinot rather than exuberance, and old vines on restraining soils give the fine, cocoa-like tannin and the earthy depth that mark this out.
The producer
Neudorf
View all Neudorf winesTim and Judy Finn planted Neudorf in 1978, when Nelson had no wine industry to speak of, and they were among the pioneers who established that it could have one. Tim was a founding member of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand. Their daughter Rosie now runs the estate with winemaker Todd Stevens.
The asset is the Moutere clay. Nelson sits at the top of the South Island, sunnier than most of New Zealand but cooled by the sea, and the Moutere hills are formed of ancient gravelly clay laid down by a long-vanished river system. Clay holds water through dry summers and restrains vigour, and vines rooted in it ripen slowly and evenly. The Home Block Chardonnay from those soils is widely held to be among the finest made in the country.
The range is tiered by site: Tiritiri for the wider Nelson wines, then the named Moutere blocks, Rosie's Block and Home Block and Tom's Block, each bottled separately. An amphora-fermented Chardonnay sits alongside them, which is an unusual thing to attempt at this level and works.
