The Auswine Forum

Missed the cut in X-Church, and being booked out the next day,had to make the most of my final evening. Managed to convince my non wine geek room mate that he should go halves with me in two bottles of Pinot. He was in the mood to get stuck in,so I didn't need too much persuasion!

Found a pretty good wine shop,plenty of good labels. What was noticeable though was how exxy the top labels are becoming- Gibbston Valley Reserve 2002 - $110 Felton Rd Block 5 - $85+ and so on. Had a good look around and settled on

1- Mount Difficulty Pinot 2002

2- Chard Farm Finla Mor Pinot 2002


Both wines were exactly $40


Had the Mt Difficulty first. Deeply coloured,but still varietal on the nose,more in the cherry spectrum though. Full flavoured,again the cherry fruit comes to the fore with a distinctly savoury edge,quite powerful and with admirable length. I really enjoyed this wine. It is definately a "bigger" style of pinot but you can't mistake it for any other variety,unlike some Oz examples. I think it represents very good value at this price.
The Finla Mor on the other hand,was quite disappointing. I've had this wine before,and I remember being underwhelmed by it then also. I believe it is the second label of Chard Farm,but I'm happy to be corrected. It showed a restrained nose of mixed berries,mainly strawberry. In the mouth it showed only average length and intensity,and was really something of a simple wine in terms of texture and structure. Not a bad wine,but in terms of a comparison between the two,it finished a poor second.

Cheers


Grant Dodd

Grant,
If u like bigger style of Kiwi P/N, here are some that really impressed - Fromm "Clayvin Vinyard"(Marlborough), Kaituna Est.'s Canterbury & Kawarau Rsv.(Otago) and u definately wont mistake it for another variety.

Grant wrote:
Had the Mt Difficulty first. Deeply coloured,but still varietal on the nose,more in the cherry spectrum though. Full flavoured,again the cherry fruit comes to the fore with a distinctly savoury edge,quite powerful and with admirable length. I really enjoyed this wine. It is definately a "bigger" style of pinot but you can't mistake it for any other variety,unlike some Oz examples. I think it represents very good value at this price.
The Finla Mor on the other hand,was quite disappointing. I've had this wine before,and I remember being underwhelmed by it then also. I believe it is the second label of Chard Farm,but I'm happy to be corrected. It showed a restrained nose of mixed berries,mainly strawberry. In the mouth it showed only average length and intensity,and was really something of a simple wine in terms of texture and structure. Not a bad wine,but in terms of a comparison between the two,it finished a poor second.

Cheers


Grant Dodd

Nice work Grant.

Mt Difficulty o2 - got some big Liquorland trophy as the best pinot. I have had one that was very good indeed the Mt D. Pipeclay or similar. The regular can be an extracted monster and loses varietal characters at times.

The Finla Mor is indeed second to Bragato and the cheapie is the River Run. I have tried an earlier vintage once and it was very good although on the more big extracted style.

Were either in screw cap?
michel

Michel,

Yes,it's always a bone of contention amongst pinot lovers as to where varietal correctness begins and ends. I'm finding that I tend to favour the more full flavoured style when a choice has to be made in terms of superiority,as long as it doesn't become a caricature of what the style is intended to be. The Finla Mor was probably more varietally correct from a purists point of view, but just lacked vigour and persistence,and dare I say,a touch of excitement. The Mt Difficulty just had a bit of X-factor that set it apart,probably the reason why it won the trophy as well.

My apologies for not making it last night,things were out of my control though. It would have been nice to meet you all,hopefully some other time. Hope you had a good night.

Cheers

Sorry,both were screw capped.

Cheers

If u like bigger style of Kiwi P/N, here are some that really impressed - Fromm "Clayvin Vinyard"(Marlborough), Kaituna Est.'s Canterbury & Kawarau Rsv.(Otago) and u definately wont mistake it for another variety

I agree the kawarau reserve is a great wine.

La Stradas "Fromm Vineyard" I think is even better than the more hyped Clayvin

Craig,
I've tried both fr the 2000 vintage and the "Clayvin" struck me as the "reserve' bottling. It delivered much more of everything.

I really like many of the NZ Pinots for their real richness and depth. I normally drink shiraz and have kept clear of pinots and Burgundy beacuse often they are too light in fruit richness but most NZ pinots I find are more 'red wine' with richness and flavour.

I suppose it is cheaper to drink shiraz for flavour but if I drink a pinot then I generally choose Martinborough region wines as they are gutsy and generous and less austere and 'elegant'. Can't beat sweet fruit and some good French oak and tanninnfor mine!

Finla Mhor, this is the upper-end commercial label. Bragatto used to be the premium, however this will now be "Red Gate" from the 02 vintage on. They are also intending to make single vineyard wines to compliment the Red Gate label I believe.

2002 was an outstanding year for this southernmost region with the same GDD as Martinborough (1150) that year.

Last January (2003), I visited the region and I'm afraid was underwhelmed. I was privileged to see some wonderful wines (Mt Difficulty, Akarua, Carrick, Amisfield and Red Gate, should all be available in Aus at some time), but of the 60 or so wines I tasted I would rate only about 10 as being worthy of consideration.

Too many thin, over-worked wines, all cherry flavours with very little depth or complexity. Those 10 that did make my cut, were wonderful wines.

Much has yet to be done in Central Otago to understand the growing of their predominant varietal (Pinot). Most appear to be attempting to satisfy their bank manager or CFO.

It is expensive to grow wine in this climate (between 850 and 1050 GDD on average), but as yet little research has been done on what crop control can do for the longevity both of the palate (most finish very short) and of the wine.

I have to add that this is a lesson that has to be learnt by many wine companies throughout NZ. It is NOT tonnes per acre, in the strict sense, but the balance of the vine. Many Trophy wines have been produced over the years at "economic" cropping levels, however the further south, the less crop the vine can ripen fully in that very short season they have in C.O.

Interesting comments Ghost. Isn't that true for many regions though - lots of under-achievers and a few at the "cream" end ?

regards
Chris

Hi Chris,

Look the obvious answer to your question is yes.

However as the majority of the wines in Central Otago are priced in excess of $30 then the answer is a resounding NO!

If I buy Banrock Station Shiraz and have difficulty telling it apart from Tarrango ... hell, I have a clean wine, innocuous yes, but then I've only paid $6.00 a bottle for it.

The wineries in Central Otago appear to believe that they are so unique that they can charge $35 (average!!!!), for the wines I described. I have no doubt that they need to do so, to survive.

Well, frankly, few need to survive!

Sorry, lots of really lovely people, all very genuine ... but the world just doesn't owe them a living.