International Pinot Noir Day Wed 18th August, 2021
Why not celebrate International Pinot Noir Day with a New Zealand Pinot Noir! Intense, expressive, and fruit-driven, the Pinot Noir grape has found a home in New Zealand, and this International Pinot Noir Day is the perfect time to celebrate this notoriously fickle grape. Wind the clock back 20 years and Pinot Noir was barely known, leave alone grown, in New Zealand, but today there are plenty of reasons to celebrate the variety, and on 18 August, you can do just that.
New Zealand Pinot Noir is predominantly grown in the cooler southerly regions of Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson, North Canterbury, and Central Otago. The huge diversity in these climates and soils enables a wide range of styles, however common to all, is structure and elegance overlaid by power and fruit-driven intensity.
Did you know, allegedly, a Pinot Noir cutting was snipped from the renowned Domaine de la Romanée-Conti vineyards in Burgundy by a mischievous tourist. Smuggled into New Zealand in a gumboot, the plant was intercepted at Auckland airport customs by Malcolm Abel, a local winemaker who happened to be working as a customs officer. He realised what this grapevine was and sent it to the government’s viticultural research centre to be processed properly. Eventually the first cuttings were released and Abel planted them. His vineyard no longer exists but Abel’s cuttings have been shared far and wide, and the Abel clone is the foundation of many of New Zealand’s premium Pinot Noir today.
Check out more New Zealand Pinot Noir Facts on their website (details below)
For more info about New Zealand Pinot Noir CLICK HERE
