Wine With Altitude: New Zealand’s Southern Pinots Win Big

Central Otago in New Zealand is the southernmost wine growing region on the globe producing some exceptional Pinot Noirs on par with the best in the world. The region is located near the country’s most popular tourism destination, Queenstown, the main hub city in the lower South Island surrounded by snow-capped mountains and long verdant valleys. Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were both filmed here. Due to the high elevation and a quirky deep southern climate, no wine growing region in the world undergoes the 24-hour changes in temperature here. So it took a very adventurous and plucky group of pioneering winemakers to plant grapes in these parts during the 1980s.

The fruits of their labors are reaching their zenith thanks to an astonishingly good array of 2009 vintages. Created by Peregrine Wines, the ’09 Peregrine Pinot Noir won the Bouchard Finlayson Trophy Pinot Noir at the International Wine & Spirit Competition in London last year. The pinot also won the 2010 Air New Zealand Champion Wine of the Show award—the nation’s highest honor.

The London judges said the Peregrine pinot exemplifies the wine term, “Peacock’s Tail,” where the flavors display themselves across the tongue. Their tasting notes read: “Sensuous, nervously controlled elegance are the hallmarks of this absolutely stunning wine. This rose effortlessly to its supreme gold mark with the panel.”

And Peregrine is just getting started.

“Although we’ve been quietly confident all along with the standards of wine we produce,” says co-owner Lindsay McLachlan, “never in our wildest dreams did we think we would receive two fantastic accolades like this early in our history.”

We popped in to scope out the event spaces at Peregrine. This is by far the most modern, edgy design of any vineyard we know about. The main building looks like a huge metal wing angling toward a large grassy meadow at the base of a mountain range. The elevated open-air main floor is a gorgeous space for about 100 pax for cocktails at sunset. The minimalist wine tasting and barrel rooms are underground, hosting about 50 pax, and there’s a lovingly restored 1860′s woolshed at the vineyard entrance well suited for 100-person dinners.

Peregrine Wines pulls grapes from 11 vineyard sites in the three major sub-regions of Central Otago: Gibbston, Lowburn and Bendigo. Three of them are owned/managed by Peregrine, and all three are organically farmed. The company’s philosophy revolves around “the soil being the vine’s stomach.” The soil is nurtured with homemade composts created with pomace (winery waste), straw, baleage and cow manure, all of which are produced onsite.

The militant observation toward bio-diversity without using any herbicides is further realized through the rotation of cover crops, undervine weeders and sheep grazing.

Peregrine also sponsors a series of initiatives to protect peregrine falcons and the native mohua and saddleback birds. The saddleback was previously thought to be extinct, and through a partnership with the Fiorland Conservation Trust, the vineyard helped re-establish the mohua on Resolution Island last year. It was a momentous occasion because it was the first time that native wildlife has been returned to the island, and it will ensure the future of the species estimated to have reached as low a population as 14 birds.