Winery notes (2022 Vintage)
"Rockburn Eleven Barrels; the name says it all really. Every year we fill hundreds of French oak barrels with Pinot Noir, and every year I search for those individual barrels that most eloquently speak of site and season. We present the results of that search to you here with a wine that exhibits the attributes I enjoy most about Pinot Noir; subtlety, elegance and personality.
The 2022 Eleven Barrels Parkburn Vineyard Pinot Noir is a single vineyard wine displaying the power, generosity and intensity generated by our Parkburn Vineyard site. Dark and moody, the Eleven Barrels displays notes of black cherry, thyme and ripe plum, with an expressive nose and plush tannins on the palate. With the fine balance of ripe fruit, natural acidity and mineral tension this wine truly represents the Pisa sub-region and its complex nature. Expect to see this youthful wine transform and evolve over a decade or more; please be aware a fine deposit may occur as a result of our minimal handling philosophy."
Rated Excellent & 94/100 Cameron Douglas MS, September 2023 (2022 Vintage)
"A ruby and purple hued appearance leads to a bouquet of freshness, youth, pure light red fruits scents and layers of complexity from barrel to soil, and fruit to flowers. Delicious on the palate, perfectly weighted to showcase the core light red fruit flavours of re cherry and apple, tart raspberry flesh and cranberry. Tannins and on point with fine textures and a backbone of acidity. A developing complexity as the wine opens out in glass. Best drinking from 2026 through 2036."
94/100 David Walker Bell, WineFolio.co.nz, August 2023 (2022 Vintage)
"A deep ruby colour in the glass, with a signature Central Otago perfume of damson, rosehip, cherry, musky asian spice, pepper and thyme. The palate is compelling, laced with that fleshy fruit and bolstered by granular, pliant tannin. A confident acidity sets the tone for a wine that could be moody and dark, but is driven by a generosity and plushness that emerges as an exotic headiness. The oak, minerality and savoury elements of bracken and peat are neatly tucked-in towards the long, harmonic finish."
5 Stars & 19/20 (95) Candice Chow, Raymond Chan Wine Reviews (2022 Vintage)
"Bright, light ruby-red, even colour throughout. This has a gentle, complex bouquet with dark cherry, plum, thyme, sweet spice and toasty oak. Medium-full bodied, dark cherry and plum aromas melded with thyme, cinnamon, nutmeg, unfolding milk chocolate and a hint of caramel. The fruit has a lovely ripeness in the dark-toned spectrum and elegant acidity. The mouthfeel is refined; silky tannins reflect integrated oak and linger with alluring toasty elements. This enticing Pinot Noir possesses black fruit; integrated oak elevates a toasty and silky palate and lends a satisfying, lingreing finish. Match with roasted lamb and duck over the next 10 years. Fruit from ParkburnVineyard, clone Able, fermented in 7-tonne fermenter, 8 days cold soaked, fermented over one week to 13.5% alc, 10 days post-fermentation maceration, aged 14 months in French oak, 27% new oak."