2014 Pinot Noir Bannockburn Vineyard

I was eager to taste at Valli Wines for the first time because Grant Taylor’s sweet, sappy Pinot Noirs have been consistent standouts in my peer group tastings in recent years. Taylor was one of the trailblazers in Central Otago, having begun making wine in the region in 1993. He established his own small venture in 1998, making wine at the outset from purchased fruit. He now owns 8 hectares of vines, including 3.6 in Gibbston Valley.

Taylor makes about 2,700 cases of Pinot Noir annually under the Valli label (plus an equal quantity of Pinot under another label), from four very different sources, one of them in North Otago. He also makes small quantities of Pinot Gris, Riesling and Chardonnay, and an “orange” wine. “Pinot Gris is the flavor of the month in New Zealand,” he told me in late January.

Taylor compares Central Otago’s 2013 and 2014 vintages to 2009 and 2010, adding that 2014 is fleshier than 2013 but with more energy and structure as well. He described 2015 as a cool vintage. Taylor gives his Pinot Noirs a pre-fermentation cold soak lasting between 7 and 15 (“the fruit comes in clean so we don’t need a lot of SO2”), then vinifies them in the insulated polyethylene fermenters popular in the Central Otago region, using punchdown more for temperature control than for extraction. He subsequently carries out 7 to 9 days of post-fermentation maceration. By making the Pinots the same way, he told me, “the differences between them are 90% due to the region.”