Craggy Range Aroha Pinot Noir Walker & Wodehouse

Craggy Range’s Aroha is a vibrant Pinot Noir grown on elevated terrace slopes at the Te Muna Road vineyard in Martinborough, where an ancient dried river bed delivers perfect growing conditions.

Dense dark cherry colour. Complex brooding aromatics of black cherry, plum, rose and wooden spices. An excellent illustration of subtle power across the palate. Beautifully textured ripe fruit flows seamlessly across the palate with sinew and spice from stem and oak influence. The feel is precise, savoury and long.

It was aged in (30% new) French oak barriques for 9 months.

Aroha is a romantic word in the Maori language meaning ‘love’.

Terry Peabody’s wife and daughter convinced him to establish a family wine business in the 1990s. After travelling the world in search of the perfect spot, he settled on Gimblett Gravels in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. This spot was chosen because of his love of big reds, particularly Syrah and Bordeaux. Today, Craggy Range is one of New Zealand’s most prestigious and highly awarded wine producers, boasting an enviable portfolio spanning various varieties and regions. What unites them is world-class winemaking, uncompromising attention to detail and technical excellence. Craggy Range is a member of the New Zealand Fine Wine Classification and were crowned New Zealand Winery of the Year in 2017 by leading wine writer Bob Campbell MW.

Pinot Noir is Martinborough’s most planted and certainly most acclaimed grape variety. The region’s warm, dry summers and mild winters have led to complex and structured wines with subtle aromatics and an elegant finish. The success of Martinborough Pinot Noir has to a large extent driven the rapid development of this very dynamic and quality-focused region.

Goes wonderfully with duck.

“Rich, concentrated, mouth-filling pinot noir in a ripe style with dark-fleshed plum, dark berry, spicy oak, liquorice, a hint of violet and subtle Christmas cake and dried fruit characters. A seductively-textured, almost sumptuous wine.”
96 Points – Bob Campbell

“A beautiful wine this, that I tasted at Craggy Range just a few months ago. It is 50% whole bunch pressed into into oak cuves and steel for fermentation, followed by ageing in barrels, 30% new. It really has such lovely sweet, intense perfume, tobacco and Sandalwood and ripe black fruits presenting a positively velvety picture. The palate silky textured and concentrated, the supple but dense layering of black fruit, spice and mocha oak is lovely, still with agile, refined acidity.”
96 Points – Bob Campbell