KAIKOURA BAY | Pinot Noir | Hawkes Bay | 2015
pinot noir

WineStatistics will be evaluating wines in no particular order on no particular schedule. Just stay tuned and you will never miss one. If the wine is tasted more than once, the rating table will be updated so as to reflect all the new impressions and observations. The logic is simple – the more we taste, the more we learn.

Tonight we are going to review another New Zealand wine – Pinot Noir Hawkes Bay 2015 from Kaikoura Bay. Pinot noir is rightly considered the most difficult grape to grow, and as a result, the most difficult wine to make and New Zealand has long claimed to make the best pinot noir wines outside Burgundy and certainly there are many fine examples in the Marlborough region to prove that point. What makes pinot noir wines special, is the fact that it can conserve the terroir of the region in a way no other grape variety can. But enough theory, let’s move on with the tasting and find out just how good this wine is.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

Visual
Clear and transparent ruby color, with bright copper shades toward the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with savory flavours and red fruits: tomato leaf, ripe sour cherry, dried red cherry, cranberry, dried cherry tomato, red currant, forest floor, wolfberry, rose hips, pomegranate and some nunced and delicate hints of sauerkraut.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and smooth tannin. It tastes light, savory and lean, with a quite nuanced fruity accent . This is a crisp, a bit seedy and quite elegant pinot noir wine. The wine has a good overall balance and a very nice harmony between all its elements.

Aftertaste
It has a medium-plus finish and an balanced, crisp and smooth aftertaste.
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This is definitely a great Wine of New Zealand and the overall rating says the same, with 92.0 points scored it is right there, among the best wines we’ve tasted so far. Please click on the chart icon on the left in order to get to the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines we’ve tasted to date.

Conclusion: this is a wine in its prime form, one that can age for another 12 or 24 months, and yes, this is a typical pinot noir wine, very well made, with the right balance between savory and fruity notes. We would highly recommend this wine as an example of typicity of pinot noir, especially as an exercise of immersion in the new world pinot noir. For a better experience, pair this wine with meat dishes that are rich in savory and irony flavours, like for example a blue rare sirloin steak with bell peppers or some maple glazed ham, as this is a wine-and-food pairing that is impossible to forget. Enjoy!

WineStatistics tasting results:

KAIKOURA BAY
Pinot Noir | Hawkes Bay | 2015

grape: | pinot noir |

region: New Zealand | Hawke’s Bay

overall rating: | 92.0 |

conclusion: excellent | (a must try)

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(c) The WineStatistics ratings are based solely on our own knowledge of the world of wine and on our personal wine tastes, which may, or may not, differ from yours – the reader. There are no absolutes of right and wrong in wine appreciation.