Hunter’s Wines have won more than 200 gold medals at national and international wine competitions. Family-owned, they are the only Marlborough vineyard established in the 1970s to still be owned by its original family — more than 30 years after being founded. Today, they are nurturing the next generation of winemakers.
Grapes for this wine are grown mainly in the Southern Valleys sub-region of Marlborough. This area is famed for producing rich and structured Pinot. The fruit is hand-picked, with around one third whole clusters used in the ferment. The cap was worked with gentle pumpovers during cold soak and the early stages of fermentation. The cap was worked harder towards the end of ferment to extract flavours from the grape skins, and the wine was pressed off at its completion. The wine was aged in French oak barrels for just under one year, roughly one quarter of which were new. The wine was given a very gentle filtration prior to bottling – naturally occurring sediment may be present.
This Pinot Noir is elegant and fruit-forward with ripe plum and cherry characteristics dominating the nose, and hints of wild raspberry coming through underneath. A lovely light earthiness ties these aromas together and continues on the palate, along with a subtle graphite and black pepper spice. This is a mid-weight Pinot with well-integrated tannins carrying through to an extended finish. Drink now and for the next five years.
“Baked cherry, strawberry guava, complex aromas of well integrated savoury spice. Rounded palate that relies on fruit weight and fine tannin to give length. Nice dark bright, ruby red, velvet, and violet perfumed nose, good weight of fruit mid palate, lovely fruit tannins, develops well across the palate, elegant, lovely finish. ”
95 points, Wine NZ Magazine
