ESK VALLEY PINOT NOIR 2024

Pinot Noir. $12.99. You may as well not read any further…

But if you do… There is a lot of wine looking for a home at the moment, and that is creating some pretty extraordinary buying opportunities. Deals like this are not something we would normally expect to see.

The 2024 vintage was a particularly good for New Zealand wine, and in particular Marlborough Pinot Noir had a very good year. It's one of those years where wines give the good old adage of "overdelivering", quality vineyards, experienced winemaking team, and obviously quality fruit. It certainly gets our attention.

Marlborough Pinot Noir can sometimes be overlooked in favour of Central Otago, but there's plenty of good drinking to be found further north, particularly in a vintage like 2024.

The Esk Valley Pinot Noir 2024 is exactly that sort of wine. Bright and fruit driven, with dark cherry, blueberry and plum, alongside some gentle spice, polished tannins and a soft, generous texture. It has also spent 11 months in French oak barriques, adding a little savoury complexity without taking over.

This isn't about pretending you've found the next great New Zealand Pinot Noir. It's simply a very well made, very easy drinking bottle that overdelivers at $12.99.

Marlborough Pinot may sometimes play second fiddle to Central Otago, but at this price, you'd be mad not to jump in.

Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"The Marlborough region, with its high sunshine hours and cool nights, is ideally suited to producing elegant and poised Pinot Noir. The result is a heady blend of dark cherry and mixed berries with intriguing underlying spice notes.

The grapes for this wine were sourced from two key vineyards; one in the Awatere valley, giving bright fruit aromas and the other in the sub-region of the Southern valleys, contributing ripe, structured tannin. The fruit was destemmed and soaked before fermentation in open-topped fermenters. Hand plunging employed to gently extract tannin and colour. When dry the wine was pressed to both tank and barrel for malolactic fermentation. The wine was then aged in French oak barriques for 11 months before blending and bottling."

5 Stars & 93/100 Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, January 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"It's delightfully fruited and fragrant on the nose with dark plum, blueberry, clove, and floral aromas. The palate is equally appealing with juicy fruit intensity, well supported by fleshy texture and polished tannins, finishing long and soothing. At its best: now to 2029."