SNAPSHOT IN TIME

Wine is incredibly unique in its ability to capture time and place. If you’re a brewery or a distiller, then you can have ferments going any time of the year to suit demand. 

Winemaking means you only get one shot at it annually. It doesn’t matter if there has been a frost, if you can’t get staff due to a pandemic, or if there is a plague of locusts... I should not tempt fate! 

Good wine doesn’t rely on additives and winemaking tricks. It should tell you the story of the vintage, whether it was a wet summer or a drought. It should tell you where it was from in the world. North Canterbury wines always show intensity from the drying effects of the nor’wester and beautiful aromatics from our soil profiles. 

Just as a wedding, anniversary, or birthday celebrates a specific time, so does great wine. If you are to be celebrating a specific event, look to put some wine down in your cellar in advance or gift a special bottle from that year. You don’t need some fancy wine storage place, just somewhere that doesn’t get hot – in the back of a wardrobe works best. Most North Canterbury Pinot Noir will taste better around the seven-to-ten-year mark. Then when you open that wine, you can reflect on what you were doing and where you were – a real snapshot in time you can enjoy with friends. 

Some wines I recommend: 

Greystone Vineyard Ferment Pinot Noir 2019 

This is fermented outside in the vineyard so that it captures the native yeasts and flavours of Canterbury. A unique and award-winning wine for the true Pinotphile. 

$75, greystonewines.co.nz 

Muddy Water Pinot Noir 2018 

From old, ungrafted vines that have deep roots into the clay-rich soil of Omihi. Organic and uncompromising with a fuller, richer style than many Pinots. 

$42, muddywater.co.nz 

Norwester Pinot Noir 2018 

A blend of three sites across North Canterbury to capture that sense of what true Cantabrian Pinot tastes like. 

$28, vinofino.co.nz