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Tasting notes
From McCreanor vineyard with 25-year-old vines on slightly heavier soils and clones 5, Abel and AM 10/5. Hand harvested, fermented with ambient yeast. Total maceration time 12 days with hand-plunging in open-top wooden fermenters. Aged in French oak for 12 months, 30% new. TA 4.7 g/l, pH 3.67. Fined with egg whites and unfiltered. A great waft of dark peppery fruit. Dusty, a little stalky. Dry and tight on the palate, great restraint, perhaps just a little austere and light on the mid palate – straddles elegance and austerity. (JH)
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Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Medium ruby in color, the 2011 Pahi Pinot Noir is a single vineyard wine from a block of 10 x 5 clone vines in the town of Martinborough proper. On the nose it has slightly dusty fruit notes of cranberry and delicate strawberry nuances with a whiff of chalk. Medium-bodied with lively acid and low to medium silky tannins, this is a very elegant and delicate wine with a long finish. Drink it now to 2017+. Larry McKenna is a man of vision and hard graft, and these attributes show in his very impressive wines. Originally from Australia, he left Roseworthy College in South Australia in 1976 and never looked back. Pinot must have got under his skin when he hit New Zealand, where spent he spent 13 years building the quality and reputation of Martinborough Vineyard’s Pinot before striking out for the then-undeveloped “Upper Terraces” off Te Muna Road in 1999, where he established a vineyard and also developed his own ground-breaking style from unique vineyards on the town’s escarpment. The Kupe Vineyard in particular has incredible promise and potential, densely planted to Able Clone (NZ’s “gum boot” clone, which is thought to have originated from DRC) on the Te Muna site. McKenna also makes some very good single vineyard expressions from vineyards on the terrace in the town, naming the wines after the vineyards: Kiwa, Pahi and Te Rehua. Importer: Empson USA Inc., Alexandria, VA; tel. (703) 684-0900; Fax (703) 684-2065
About the producer
Based in Martinborough, Escarpment is one of New Zealand’s leading producers of Pinot Noir. The estate’s top cuvée Kupe is widely regarded as a benchmark example of the region’s potential for producing world-class Pinot Noir.