2010 Dog Point Pinot Noir, Marlborough, New Zealand

Dog Point

Dog Point Vineyard combines the considerable winegrowing experience of Ivan Sutherland and James Healy, the former chief viticulturalist and head winemaker at New Zealand's Cloudy Bay.

The name Dog Point dates from the earliest European settlement of Marlborough and the introduction of sheep to the district. These were days of few fences, of boundary riders and "boundary keeping dogs". Shepherds' dogs sometimes became lost or wandered off and eventually bred into a marauding pack which attacked local flocks. Their home was a tussock and scrub covered hill, overlooking the Wairau Plains, designated by the early settlers as Dog Point.

After leaving Cloudy Bay, Ivan Sutherland and James Healy began making wines from Sutherland's own vineyards, which were planted in the 70's and 80's. Additional fruit is sourced from selected vineyard plantings dating back to the late 1970's. The vineyards are partly older plantings on the clay silt of the valley floor where the Brancott valley joins the Wairau valley, and partly newer plantings on three ridges on the west side of the Brancott. The Sauvignon is mostly valley floor, Pinot and Chardonnay mostly on the ridges.

Grapes are all hand-picked, and, with the exception of the stainless steel made sauvignon, all wines are given extended barrel ageing with minimal racking and handling. It's a non-interventionist, natural, hands-off technique that characterizes all their wines.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or.

Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.

Because of the thinness of the skins, Pinot Noir wines are lighter in colour, body and tannins. However the best wines have grip, complexity and an intensity of fruit seldom found in wine from other grapes. Young Pinot Noir can smell almost sweet, redolent with freshly crushed raspberries, cherries and redcurrants. When mature, the best wines develop a sensuous, silky mouth feel with the fruit flavours deepening and gamey "sous-bois" nuances emerging.

The best examples are still found in Burgundy, although Pinot Noir`s key role in Champagne should not be forgotten. It is grown throughout the world with notable success in the Carneros and Russian River Valley districts of California, and the Martinborough and Central Otago regions of New Zealand.