Rockburn Devils Staircase Pinot Noir 2024
£18.95
The wine
This Pinot Noir bursts with flavours of black plum, blueberries and dark cherry. Rich, smooth and fruity on the palate, with supple tannins and a very moreish finish. This is devilishly good.
Devils Staircase is named for a notorious stretch of the Kawarau gorge road. It is the estate's approachable Pinot Noir, made for early drinking with restrained extraction and modest oak, and it shows the generous dark fruit that Central Otago's hot days and cold nights produce.
The producer
Rockburn
View all Rockburn winesRockburn began as Richard Bunton's hobby in 1991, when he planted a few hectares in what was then an almost unknown Central Otago. In 2005 winemaker Malcolm Rees-Francis arrived from Felton Road, and the wines have not looked back.
Central Otago is the southernmost wine region on earth and the only one in New Zealand with a continental rather than maritime climate. Summers are hot, nights are cold, and winters are severe, which gives Pinot Noir a depth of colour and fruit that cooler maritime regions cannot match while the diurnal swing preserves the acidity. The estate draws on several sub-regions, including Gibbston, the highest and coolest of them, where ripening runs weeks behind the valley floor.
The barrel-selection wines are the ones to know: Twelve Barrels and Seven Barrels are chosen after fermentation from the best lots of the year, and The Chosen isolates a single Pinot Noir clone. Rockburn also make one of the more serious Pinot Gris in the country.
