Description
VALLI is the personal vocation of pioneering winemaker Grant Taylor. Grant’s name is synonymous with Otago Pinot Noir. He has been crafting wines there since 1993 when there were only 20 ha planted – today there are over 2000. Grant founded VALLI in 1998 with the intention to produce single vineyard Pinot Noirs highlighting the different characteristics of Otago’s sub regions. More than 20 years later, VALLI is doing just that, producing single-vineyard pinot noirs from Gibbston, Bannockburn, and Bendigo in Central Otago and the Waitaki Valley in North Otago, as well as a dry Pinot Gris from Gibbston and a Riesling from Waitaki. In 2015, established Otago winemaker Jen Parr joined Grant in the winery where the two aim to create wines with honesty, integrity, and most of all, a sense of place. When you drink a Valli wine, you are enjoying more than just a wine: you are experiencing a place.
New Zealand’s newest and most exciting wine growing region – Waitaki, with the first commercial vintage being in 2004. Like Burgundy, the soils are limestone based. These soils lend an incredible ethereal nature to the wines, which are highlighted by perfume and minerality. Slightly cooler than Central Otago, the Waitaki Valley should not be cropped as heavily, and therefore Valli’s Waitaki Vineyard is close planted at 5000 vines per hectare with early ripening clones from Dijon and Pommard.
About this wine from the winemaker, Jen Parr “A translucent garnet hue with aromas of wild strawberry, pomegranate and pomelo laced with wild thyme, cedar, and gunflint. This unique bouquet is followed on the palate with cardamom, allspice, damson plum, strawberry, and tart cherry. The wine is lithe and agile with fine tannins and incredible persistence, finishing with distinctive salinity. Intense fragrance, unique savoury undertones, and electric energy are the hallmarks of Valli Waitaki Pinot Noir and the 2022 vintage delivers this in a balletic way. Mesmerising at release, this wine will continue to develop for at 15+ years” Jen Parr – September 2023
95 Points, Cameron Douglas MS “A fascinating and complex bouquet filled with scents of light and dark skinned cherry, some raspberry and yellow plum. There’s a distinctive seam of mineral chalk cushioned by core bright red berry fruit flavours, layers of spice and a touch of white smoke. A delicious wine an abundance of polished fine textured tannins and backbone of acidity. Well made, dry, lengthy and complex. Best drinking from 2026 through 2036.”
95 Points, Top 40 NZ Pinot Noir, Emma Jenkins MW, Decanter Magazine
95 points, Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion “The lightest, most filigreed and spacious of the Valli pinot offerings, the Waitaki Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 makes for a captivating drink. Aromas and flavours flit in and out of view, momentarily lit like a trout crossing a sliver of light in a pool. Notes of redcurrant, red cherry, raspberry, crushed river stone, sous bois, hanging game meats, amaro herbs and spice. It’s lithe and febrile with the sapidity and umami peaking the meters with a long, sustained draw of pinosity on the exit.”
94 Points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate “The 2022 Waitaki Vineyard Pinot Noir is light and fine, both in the glass and aromatically. On the palate, the wine is so fine and littered with crushed shells, river stones and cherry skin. This is fragrant and lithe, pretty and detailed. It is all of these things, but it is not short. It spools through the long finish, like a fishing rod reel in cast. As there will be no 2023 Waitaki Vineyard Pinot Noir, make hay while the sun shines, I say. A beauty. “
94 Points, Bob Campbell MW, The Real Review “Relatively light pinot noir that’s not lacking in power. Supple, savoury wine with cherry, raspberry, violet, fresh herbs and spicy oak flavours. On the greener side of the flavour spectrum but has good energy and impressive length.”
RRP $115 Our Special Price $93.99 when you buy 6 or more
