Pinot Noir, Rippon 'Tinker's Field'

Tinker's Field is a special section of Rippon Vineyard that vigneron Nick Mills feels speaks with a unique accent. When the vintage conditions permits, a small portion of Pinot Noir grown on the Northern slope closer to Lake Wanaka is bottled separately to tell a richer story of the season from Rippon's point of view. This is a brilliant Pinot Noir. Architecutal, structural, tense and brooding, this is one of the finest single vineyard expressions of Pinot Noir to be found anywhere on New Zealand's South Island. The 2017 vintage was extremely limited.

From a parcel of the oldest vines on the Rippon property with coarse schist gravels, this is a complex and strikingly fragrant pinot noir with aromas of blueberry, blood orange, orange peel, violet, crushed rock, moist earth, pepper and fresh-ground brown spices. The palate has a strikingly vivid and intense core of blueberry and dark-cherry flavors. So vivid, ultra pure and enigmatic, this is restrained yet powerful. The tannins shine bright on a lustrous and deep-reaching finish. Stunning.

98 points, James Suckling ‘Dark chocolate, clove and cinnamon characters mesh with a thick weave of emery board tannins. The wine is all dark fruit, mocha, earthiness, and toasty wood characters, quite lavish, shades of midnight for pinot noir, very long in flavor, expressive and guttural.’