Corofin Settlement Vineyard Pinot Noir 2021

Accolades:
96/100 – Jamie Goode, Wine Anorak
95/100 – Stephen Wong MW
95/100 – Gary Walsh, The Wine Front

“This comes from the organically farmed settlement vineyard, owned by the Sutherlands of Dog Point. It is beautifully perfumed with supple, fine, floral red cherry fruit as well as some dried herbs and fine green hints. The palate is concentrated but very fine and silky with a slight peppery hint to the sleek, liqueur-like red cherry and redcurrant fruit, showing amazing finesse. So textural, but there’s a bit of structure lurking under the finely infused fruit. Such a beautiful expression of Marlborough Pinot Noir.” – Jamie Goode, Wine Anorak

“Bright crimson. A pretty nose with delicate sweet and savoury fruit aromas, florals and hints of cool minerals. Bony, etched tannins which build towards the back, balanced by saline-tinged acidity. Powdery-sweet primary fruit with red currants and red berries on an elegantly structured palate with good delineation and definition. Light-bodied, mid-weight flavours of icing sugar and strawberry follow through to the finely detailed and long finish. Pretty and refined. Modern and thoughtfully constructed without being overdone, this should age gracefully by virtue of its balance.” – Stephen Wong MW

“Cherry, strawberry, rosy perfume, with gravelly/earthy bass notes, plus some biscuit spices. It’s medium-bodied, deep and full in flavour, with a rich seam of pumice stone tannin, some blood orange and amaro tang to acidity, cherry pip and raspberry, with a stony and firm finish of excellent length. So good. At the top of the NZ Pinot tree for me. Outstanding.” – Gary Walsh, The Wine Front

Tasting Note: The 18-year-old Settlement Vineyard is located in the Omaka Valley, to the south of Marlborough’s Wairau Plains. This organically certified site is managed by Dog Point’s gun viticulturist, Nigel Sowman. The fruit for this bottling hails from a 0.25-hectare sliver at the top of the vineyard’s east slope, a clay-rich parcel planted at a density of 4,600 vines per hectare (all 777 clone). Picked first, Settlement is typically the most red-fruited and youthfully radiant of the Corofin Pinot Noir single-vineyard bottlings, although Mike tells us he’s witnessed a significant evolution in the phenolic structure of the fruit in recent years.

Winemaking Notes: This year the crop yield was less than one kilogram per vine, or 25 hl/ha. The grapes were hand-picked, manually sorted and then destemmed before a snappy ferment that lasted just seven days (with very gentle pump-overs once a day). It was then pressed into seasoned French oak (two and three-year-old) barrels for 13 months before resting in tank for seven months.

Certification: Organic

Alcohol: 13.0%

Variety: Pinot Noir

Region: Marlborough, New Zealand