Peregrine Pinot Noir, Central Otago

Description

Peregrine Pinot Noir is a fantastic red wine made in the Central Otago wine-growing region of New Zealand’s South Island.

Peregrine Winery is owned by Lindsay McLachlan and Greg Hay and, although they make excellent Riesling, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, they are primarily known as Pinot Noir Specialists. The McLachlan family were one of the first to establish plantings in the Bendigo sub-region of Central Otago. Their first vintage was produced in 1998. Fraser McLachlan joined the family business in 2012 after having worked through his university summers in Bendigo. Today he is the CEO and director.

Peregrine Wines source their grapes from eleven vineyard sites from three major sub-regions of Central Otago: Gibbston, Lowburn and  Bendigo. They own three vineyard sites outright, there are 8 hectares of vineyards at their Bendigo Vineyard, 5.2 hectares at their Logan Town vineyard and 27 hectares at Gibbston. These vineyard areas typically produce intensely flavoured wines of finesse and elegance with the predominantly schist soils adding mineral complexity. 

Peregrine Pinot Noir is composed of 100% Pinot Noir fruit sourced 48% Bendigo, 44% Pisa, and 8% Gibbston sub-regions. Winemaking approach, however, has always been along traditional lines with minimal intervention to let the unique fruit flavours of Central Otago do the talking. The fruit is carefully hand-harvested and then fermented (30% with 10-30% whole bunch ferment, the remainder de-stemmed carefully) in open top fermenters. The wine is aged for 10 months in French oak barrels prior to being bottled. 

The estate has been in the process of organic conversion and the wines will be organically classified in due course. All of their own vineyards are farmed organically and are BioGro certified. The estate has a herd of Wiltshire sheep eating down the grass grown during spring and summer, then returning after harvest to tidy up the vineyard floor before budbreak and, of course, their manure helps enrich the soils and feed the vines. There are also Orpington, White Suffolk, Coronation Suffolk, Dorking, Leghorn and Rhode Island Red chickens which take care of grass grubs in the vineyards.

Peregrine Pinot Noir is suitable for vegetarians.