Dry River Pinot Noir (ORGANIC) 2020 - Martinborough, New Zealand

98/100 Bob Campbell MW, The Real Review
96/100 Cameron Douglas MS
95/100 Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
97/100 James Suckling (2019 vintage)
95/100 Cameron Douglas MS (2018 vintage)
94/100 James Suckling (2018 vintage)
93/100 The Wine Front (2018 vintage)
91/100 Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (2018 vintage)
96/100 The Wine Front (2015 vintage)
95/100 Bob Campbell (2015 vintage)
94/100 Jamie Goode (2015 vintage)
94/100 Joe Czerwinski, Wine Advocate (2015 vintage)
93/100 James Suckling (2015 vintage)
90/100 CellarTracker (2015 vintage)

Raymond Chan 5 Stars (2015 vintage)

Bob Campbell MW, The Real Review "Winemaker Wilco describes 2020 as a great vintage. The wine certainly endorses his enthusiasm...A very serious pinot noir. Deserves to be aerated, especially in its youth."

Cameron Douglas MS "A powerful and seductive bouquet with a core of pinosity then aromas of dark red berries, mineral soil, a fine savoury, dried herb quality and youthful energy. Toasty barrel and dark spices of oak are noticabel, but not misplaced. Fantastic on the palate with a core of youthful energy, baking spices and dark bery fruit flavours, firm tannins and plenty of acidity. The heartbeat of pinosity is strong, holding my attention. A lovely wine..."

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front "Beautiful wine. Likely will rate higher again with a few more years under its belt, but touch and go for 96 points now, I reckon."

James Suckling "Aromas of sweet strawberries, spice and dried flowers, as well as some spices, such as nutmeg and cinnamon. Full-bodied with firm, creamy tannins. Juicy and extremely long. Solid and polished. Goes on for minutes." (2019 vintage)

Cameron Douglas MS "Smoky, savoury, lots of pure red berry fruits aromas, clove and baking spices, roses and silty soil scents; complex. On the palate - flavours of plums and raspberry, macerated cherry and roses. Layers of new oak and baking spices begin to weave through the palate with medium+ chalky textured tannins, medium+ acidity and a youthful core of energy. Well made, classic Dry River, very youthful and quite complex, lengthy detailed finish, a delight to taste." (2018 vintage)

James Suckling "A very complex nose with plenty of forest-floor and leafy aromas across red cherries, herbs and spiced-woody notes. The palate has a very plush and open-knit feel with fresh red cherries and bright, zesty acidity. Neat and fresh. " (2018 vintage)

Gary Walsh "Gee this is very good. It’s dense, throaty and deep in tannin and flavour, but not heavy or clumsy. Dark cherry, layered with sweet spice and dried herb, an almost ferrous thing going on, which you could call ‘minerally’, if you’d like, rich grainy tannin, cool blood orange acidity, and a very long finish, spiced and pimped up with a delicious Chinotto bitterness. Superb. A wine of charisma, integrity and intrigue. Hard not to fall in love with it." (2015 vintage)

James Suckling "Super dark fruits, super ripe and super-concentrated, this is pinot noir taken to several extremes all at once. The nose is in the ripe dark plum, graphite, plum pudding and spiced panforte zone. The palate has a very strong core of tannins of unquestionable power but which have pastry-like, ripe smooth edges. The dark plum fruits run deep. Super concentrated and slightly sinewy, this wears the scars of a low-yielding and dry vintage." (2015 vintage)

Bob Campbell "Intense pinot noir, but rather more elegant than the blockbuster styles I expect from Dry River. Quite tight and youthful with dark berry, Black Doris plum, spice, anise and a generous oak influence." (2015 vintage)

Joe Czerwinski, Wine Advocate - "The 2015 Pinot Noir comes from a year that saw reduced crop yields and dry summer. The result is a concentrated, tannic, age-worthy wine that was aged in 20%-25% new French oak hogsheads. It's medium to full-bodied and velvety in texture, with black cherry notes that come dangerously close to being chocolaty, but it retains a sense of freshness on the long, rich finish." (2015 vintage)

Raymond Chan - "...This is a rich, vibrantly fruited Pinot Noir with dark-red berry and complex herb and whole cluster flavours and violet florals on a lively, firmly extracted palate."

Dry River is one of New Zealand’s most iconic pioneering wineries, established in 1979 by Dr Neil and Dawn McCallum considered amongst New Zealand's best vignerons. The combination of low yields, non-irrigated vines, organic vineyard techniques and a desire to make long-lived wines are at the forefront of this esteemed winery.

Decanter "Dry River is Martinborough's first vineyard, planted in 1979, has been owned by Julian Robertson, the man behind New Zealand's most exclusive golf resorts. The viticulture and viniculture here are different from their neighbours on the Puruatanga Road: they practise extreme leaf plucking in the vineyard, no post-fermentation maceration in the winery, and no racking in the barrel. The aim is for gentle, phenolic extraction and long-lived wine - and it seems to work."

Wine Enthusiasts Magazine "With his small, youthful team, Lam now makes ultra-premium Pinot, among other wines, from three estate-grown, organically farmed and unirrigated plots: Dry River Estate, Craighall Vineyards and Lovat Vineyard. Each site imparts specific characteristics to the wines while still maintaining a distinctive winery style. Through exacting viticulture and winemaking techniques, the team crafts small-batch, precise wines that may be slow to evolve, and perhaps even a little austere when young, but will morph into elegant and refined beauties with 10 years or more in the cellar."

Martinborough is a wine-producing area in the southern part of New Zealand's North Island. The small town and surrounding district are home to around 1,500 residents and some of New Zealand's most highly respected boutique wineries. Martinborough's cool climate and excellent soils are perfect for the production of balanced, elegant wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Martinborough lies around 55km north-east of Wellington in a wide river valley between the Rimutaka mountain range and the eastern Wairarapa hills. Despite the fact that Martinborough has only three per cent of all of New Zealand's vineyard land, it is still widely considered to be one of the country's prime wine regions. Its claim to fame is the exceptional quality of its Pinot Noir wines, produced by some of the most highly regarded wineries in New Zealand. The style of this wine is regarded to be more complex than its counterparts from Central Otago.

Pinot Noir is the dominant red wine grape of Burgundy, now produced in wine regions all over the world, including western Germany, northern Italy, Chile, South Africa, Australia and, perhaps most notably, California, Oregon and New Zealand.

The essence of Pinot Noir wine is its aroma of strawberry and cherry (fresh red cherries in lighter wines and stewed black cherries in weightier examples), underpinned in the most complex examples by hints of the forest floor. Well-built Pinot Noirs, particularly from warmer harvests, also exhibits notes of leather and violets, sometimes approaching the flavour spectrum of Syrah.