Central Otago’s Pinot Noir Has Deep Thoughts

Sure That Savvy B is cute. But Pinot.

In the 1980’s Marlborough’s Sauvignon Blanc danced onto the world stage, dazzling our palates with sizzlingly ripe, intensely aromatic wines that felt like they were made for that decade.

Bold, passionate, high-acid and herbaceous, they taste like a tropical vacation where the whole point is having fresh, ocean-kissed fun. Bikinis, sunshine, splash time.

The impact was as immediate and undeniable as the passionfruit-guava-gooseberry aromas wafting from the glass. That initial wave of success transformed the global market for Sauvignon Blanc forever, and while there was an inevitable backlash, it is still wildly popular, with 25,000 hectares of vineyard land devoted to the grape, more than three-quarters of which are in Marlborough. (I don’t know about you, but a cool Savvy B on a hot day is still a vacation from reality that I love to take).

The great white comprises a whopping 72% of the country’s overall wine production, with producers exploring an increasing range of styles and terroirs. But we’re here to talk Pinot!

Because while Marlborough Savvy B snagged our palates and ids with its sassy panache, Central Otago Pinot Noir is poised to capture our souls and brains with its cerebral elegance. In lieu of bikinis and sunshine, we have cashmere wraps, sunset views, a dog-eared copy of The Germinal. Cue the Nico soundtrack.

Central Otago on the Map

But where is this mysterious region? It’s in a south-central portion of New Zealand’s South Island. (Marlborough is on the South Island’s northeastern tip.)

That location makes it the country’s only semi-continental growing region, right on the cusp of where ripening grapes would be impossible. Precisely where life and wine tends to feel risky, exciting, and for a certain type of person, the only thing that truly compells.

Central Otago is also perched in Pinot’s happy place, between 45-47 degrees latitude, the same parallels that coax transcendence from Pinot grown in Burgundy and the Willamette Valley. One major benefit that Central Otago has over the others—although it’s also a double-edged sword—is its profound geographic emoteness.

Bringing infrastructure, auspicious rootstocks and clones, the consulting and viticultural talent necessary to build a world-class region from the soil up in a place so desperately far from the wine research and farming hubs of Europe and North America is no easy task. But once the foundation is built, the lack of industrialization and the utter purity and unsullied biodiversity of the natural environment is a boon to the health and flavor of the grapes grown there.

With about 5,613 hectares of Pinot Noir under vine across New Zealand, Central Otago has just 1,765 hectares, behind Marlborough’s 2,491. But what it lacks in volume, it more than makes up for in style and single-minded dedication.

More than 80% of the region’s vineyards are planted to Pinot Noir, followed by Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and a tiny smattering of rogue and experimental plantings.

Central Otago Pinot Noir, like its more northerly French cousin in Marlborough, often offers more fragrant and lush fruit than its Burgundian ancestors, but its flip side—tautness, steely intensity, but soft texture—balance out the exuberance and create a texture, palpable vibrance, and recognizable flavor that links it intrinsically to the land it is grown in. Get into the subregions, and the richness and diversity of Central Otago’s geography, traceable in the glass, becomes even clearer.

With four decades of growing and crafting Pinot on the books, the wines of Central Otago are being recognized as the rare unicorns they are: varietally true, capable of achieving ideal ripeness in current climate conditions, while also showing off the nuances of land that don’t quite exist anywhere else.

The Best Of Central Otago?

Any Best Of list gives me pause. Best according to whom?

The Central Dozen skirts that conundrum by simply presenting a case of 12 Central Otago Pinot Noirs curated by outside and local experts who decide that they accurately represent the year’s (in this case, 2023) vintage. For anyone ready to dive into Central Otago Pinot—and I am still very much in the diving into stage, not swimming fluently and confidently around like an actual professional—there can be no better jumping off point.