Wine of the week: A sensational pinot noir
2009 Folding Hill, Pinot Noir, Bendigo, Central Otago, New Zealand (£19.65-£19.99, Reserve Wines, 0161-438 0101; Noel Young Wines, 01223-566744; Worth Brothers, 01543-262051).
Every January I release my updated The Great New Zealand Pinot Noir Classification. I designed this guide, with Australian wine writer Tyson Stelzer, to help people to determine which of the 400 or so New Zealand pinot noir producers make, consistently, the best wines.
It takes into account the last five vintages of each winery’s estate and averages out the quality to award them stars – from one star up to five stars. Compiling this list requires a lot of tasting, as you can imagine, and last weekend I opened a vast range of samples hoping to find some new stars.
A mini-vertical tasting of Folding Hills, run by expat Tim Kerruish, looked amazing. The 2009 vintage was my pick and it sneaks in under the £20 mark, which is fantastic. With silky, fairly dense fruit and balanced oak, this is a Vosne-Romanée-shaped Kiwi pinot.
I cannot give anything away before next year’s release, but this estate is sure to feature. If you badger the merchants above you might also find some of the single vineyard Orchard Block Pinot which is five pounds more – it is another sensational wine.
• Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).