Nautilus have been focused on delivering nothing but the finest Marlborough Pinot Noir since inaugural release. Fruit is sourced from five special sites, each of which bring their own level of interest and complexity. Clay Hills in the Southern Valleys provides the backbone, harvests from the Awatere and Kaituna, Renwick and Yarrum vineyards, contribute to the structure and add layers of flavour. A tightly wound and regionally articulate Pinot Noir, to match alongside venison or veal, salmon steaks or duck.

$4599each $551DOZEN EACH DOZEN The team at Nautilus have built a dedicated Pinot Noir cellar incorporating principles of minimal handling and gravity flow, permitting the handling of fruit with the utmost respect. Vineyard clones 114, 115, 5, 667 and 777 are hand harvested and de stemmed without crushing to allow a portion of whole berries in the ferment. Parcels are filled to open top fermenters for a week of cold soak and inoculation. Treated to a careful cap management, using pneumatic punch down device, effectively extracting only the soft ripe tannins. After pressing, batches are racked directly to a mixture of seasoned and new French oak barriques, where they quietly mature until filtration and bottling in the following spring.

Dark ruby colour. Bouquet of wild raspberries, fragrant floral notes, ripe bramble berries, spices and plum. The palate is medium to full bodied with generous fruit sweetness and succulent tannins al combining to culminate on a long, warming finish. The primary fruit characters and engaging complexity will continue to grow and evolve.

A sold backbone of Wharekauhau vineyard clones 115, 667, 777 and Abel, assembled with choice parcels East Base and Clouston vineyard clones 667, 777 and Abel. Fourteen months in a selection of seasoned and new French oak barriques, a portion of whole bunches are included in the ferments for complexity. Elegant and refined, its ethereal dark berry fruits, fragrant herbaceousness and bright red florals, yield to a magnificent palate of opaque strawberry complexities, country compote, stalkyness and cherry ripe, winegum and lip pursing frais de bois.

$5299each $635DOZEN EACH DOZEN

Very dark ruby. Ripe dark red berry fruit entwined with black cherry, plum and spicy oak. Layers of liquorice, spices, soy sauce and herbs emerge from the core with aeration, the palate features rich, plush, ripe fruit flavours of dark red berries, black cherries and plums entwined with herbs, spices liquorice and pepper. The succulence of fruit is enhanced by discreet acidity, balanced by fine grained, supple tannin.

Palliser Estate make some of the finest and most consistent New Zealand Pinot Noir, a perennial winner and always a favourite, representing peerless quality every year. The label depicts a conspicuous lighthouse at Pencarrow Heads, situated to the east of Palliser Bay at the entrance to Wellington harbour. Martinborough is well known for making the New Zealand's most elegant and compelling Pinot wines, Palliser's fruit is acknowledged by many of her local peers to be Martinborough's finest.

$2749each $329DOZEN EACH DOZEN Pencarrow is the second label from Palliser Estate, gaining recognition for their impressive quality of fruit, distinctive expression of Martinborough and affable approachability. Pencarrow is crafted to traditional Burgundian techniques, harvests of several clone Pinot Noir, including 114 and 115, 667 and 777, Abel and 10/5, a portion as whole bunches, are treated to a cold soak before a wild indigenous yeast vinification for a fortnight on skins. A post ferment maceration for optimal extraction encourages the complex tannin structure and infuses further complexity. The finished wine is pressed into a selection of French oak barrels for a year's maturation.

Dark, deep, black hues. Tightly wound, intense and penetrating nose of ripe black fruits with dark herb and spice notes as well as violet florals. Medium full bodied, the flavours unfold and reveal black fruits and floral, concentrated and densely packed, supported by fine grained yet firm tannins. The oaking is sensitive and the youthful acidity carries the flavours to a long, lingering finish featuring spicy black fruits with hints of liquorice.

$6699each $803DOZEN EACH DOZEN

$12499each $1499DOZEN EACH DOZEN

A joint effort by Prophet Rock's Paul Pujol and Bonnes Mares Musigny maestro François Millet. The most superior parcels of Pinot Noir were selected by Millet from the Prophet's Home Vineyard, a magnificent site on a high elevation, steep glacial terrace at Bendigo. Ferments are plunged only once and moved without any pumps into a sellection of Rémond Allier for a judicious term of maturation. The traditional old world handling techniques meet the excellence of new world fruit, in a pas de deux which defines the sublime elegance of Central Otago Pinot Noir.

$22999each $2759DOZEN EACH DOZEN

Prophet Rock's Home Vineyard was planted to a north facing terrac, high above the Bendigo Station homestead, to panoramic vistas across river terraces of Cromwell Basin and stoic mountains of Pisa Range. An opportune confluence of soils, aspect and clime translate into harvests of intensely flavoured Pinot Noir. Vinification to a regimen of minimalist handling techniques, a gentle ferment through the action of wild, indigenous yeasts, followed by eighteen months in oak, encourages the wine to make itself and to fulfill the promise of Central Otago's most remarkable terroir.

$5499each $659DOZEN EACH DOZEN

The Home block at Prophet's Rock hosts a rare mix of soils, schist and quartz clays over a lens of alkaline chalk, all serving to stimulate the auspicious vines. Grapes are all fully destemmed and treated to a minimalist, hands off style of vinification, aimed at permiting the wine to make itself, uninfluenced and unperturbed. A succulent expression of Central Otago at its most exquisite, a jubilee of cherries, mineral and mace, seamless of tannin, graceful and intense. An extremely limited release from a tiny parcel of the most superlative vines, a mere sixty dozen bottles of vintage.

$21099each $2531DOZEN EACH DOZEN

Prophet's Rock were established in 1999, with a view to finding sites like no other. Rocky Point Vineyard is such a place, planted to some of the steepest blocks in Central Otago, at the rugged southern extremes of Bendigo. The challenging slopes are drenched in the daytime sunshine, as the rough and stony, free draining soils store the invaluable heat, warming the vines overnight. The Pinot Noir ripens earlier on Rocky Point Vineyard, realizing minimal yields of beautifully perfumed, structured yet supple wines which drink brilliantly in their youth.

$4799each $575DOZEN EACH DOZEN

$4799each $575DOZEN EACH DOZEN

Central Otago produces the new world's weightiest and most distinctive Pinot Noir. The vinification techniques at Quartz Reef however are very much in keeping with the traditional practices of the old world. Pinot Noir clones 10/5 and 5, 115 and 667, 777 and Abel are all hand picked off a closely planted, steep slope at Bendigo, a small percentage of whole bunches are retained. A week of cold soak and gentle hand plunging of indigenous yeast ferments are followed by maceration and pressing into a selection of seasoned and new French oak barrels for malolactic and maturation.

$5499each $659DOZEN EACH DOZEN

Bendigo is a slightly newer viticultural precinct of Central Otago, the largest quartz reef deposit in New Zealand runs directly beneath the vines. Established to industrial mining in 1862, the historic town of Bendigo is gaining new renown, this time for the most cogent and compelling vintages of Central Otago Pinot Noir. Selective pickings, whole bunches and a gentle hand plunge of wild yeast ferments, pressed into French oak barriques for malolactic and age. A generously proportioned and effusive Central Otago Pinot Noir of great texture, substance and complexity.

$9099each $1091DOZEN EACH DOZEN