Foundation Wine

2000 Neill Pinot Noir

"The gorse flower, beauty in adversity. For Priscilla B. Neill, 1914 - 1999"

The nose shows dried herbs, blackberry, blackcurrent and warm stone fruit characteristics. The palate includes smoky dark chocolate and plum flavours. The wine is of good intensity, large extract and has a firm long finish at end.

Vintage and Harvest Notes:

An early season was halted in its tracks by the return of La Niña which brought more east and southeastern influences on the weather, making it wetter and cooler than normal. The rest of the season was slightly warmer than usual. As a result, this very rare wine shows excellent Pinot Noir characteristics. However, because of the unusually cool spring, the yield was disappointingly small -- only 265 cases.

Availability:

We produced a very small quantity of this wine and therefore made it available for distribution in New Zealand only.

Reviews:

***1/2 -- (about $37) at present is almost overwhelmingly perfumed and fruity, with vibrant cherry, raspberry and plum flavours, but behind the fruit, some serious, savoury complexity is developing. It's not quite together yet but may well develope into a totally charming wine as the 1999 has done. -- Charmian Smith, 14 April 2002, Otago Daily Times