LAWSON’S DRY HILLS PINOT NOIR 2021

Double Gold Medal – New Zealand International Wine Show 2024

Winery notes (2021 Vintage)
"This wine highlights all that is great about Pinot Noir – lovely bright fruit with an elegant, supple mouthfeel and beautifully balanced. The nose has tempting raspberry and cherry aromas with a touch of spicy, sweet French oak. The palate echoes these characters, wrapping them up in a lovely soft, yet juicy texture.

From four fantastic vineyards in Marlborough’s Southern Valleys, the clay soils help develop this wine’s flavour and texture. The vines are carefully tended to ensure low crops and ripe, flavoursome grapes in top condition. 2021 was an excellent year for Pinot Noir with low yields and small-sized berries giving us really concentrated flavours.

The grapes were gently crushed and the juice run into small, open-top fermenters and held cold for five days’ maceration. The vats were then inoculated with a specially selected, cultured yeast to trigger fermentation. During fermentation the wine was either hand-plunged or pumped over to gently extract colour, tannin and flavour. The resulting wines were left on skins for around seven days post-ferment before pressing to predominantly old French oak barriques (just 5% new). The wine was blended after ten months maturation in barrel."

Rated Excellent & 94/100 Cameron Douglas MS, April 2025 (2021 Vintage)
"A complete wine with a complex bouquet of baking spices and red berry fruits, boysenberry and plum then dark cherry and barrel spices. Still youthfully firm with tension and poise relaxing quickly to release the flow of red berry flavours and spice. Dusty fine tannins with a clove and cacao texture, acidity carries the core fruit flavours and layer of mineral earthy ideas. Balanced, well made, still developing yet drinking well now and through 2030."