Craggy Range Aroha Pinot Noir 2024

Ken Gargett writes "It is simply impossible not to love this wine. From the brilliant 2024 vintage, fermentation was with wild yeasts. The team fermented 85% whole clusters in French oak, while the component which was from clone 114 was fermented in a combination of French oak and sandstone amphorae. Maturation was for a further fourteen months. I can’t remember a better example of this wine from any past vintage. A purple/blue hue, the nose offers a wonderful array of aromas, weaving through cherries, truffles, violets, wild raspberries, leaf litter and notes of freshly baked blackberry pie, just emerging from the oven. We are already seeing some early complexity and, no doubt, that will increase enormously over the coming years. The structure is seamless, the balance impeccable, and the concentration beautifully defined. A wine of focus and energy with great length through to satiny tannins on a lingering finish. Stunning stuff and for me the finest Aroha I can recall. A fifteen-year proposition."

Cameron Douglas MS writes "A delicious wine with a heart of fruit purity and a sense of regionality then site. An enticing bouquet of dark berries and wild flowers, purple berries then spices of earth and oak. Complex and intriguing. A dry wine touches the palate soaking it with flavours of dark cherries and boysenberry, layers of wood smoke and spices then a silty fragrant soil quality. Taut and youthful still, concentrated and flush with red fruit flavours. There’s a light chalk-dust feel to the tannins and with a decent structure from the acidity and wood this wine has all the elements to age and develop. Well made, lengthy and in keeping with the Craggy prestige portfolio. Best from 2029 through 2036+."

The winery writes "The outstanding 2024 vintage expresses its place with remarkable clarity. It opens with bright lavender perfume, and chocolate-cherry aromatics. Red and blue fruits unfold with measured precision, the stem tannins sweet and ripe, providing a fresh framework that carries the depth of fruit without excess. Poised yet deeply resonant, this wine carries all the hallmarks of a benchmark release with the substance to reward from extended cellaring."