Doctors Flat Pinot Noir

“New Zealand Red Wine of the Year” – it’s got a pretty good ring to it! That was the seriously, SERIOUSLY impressive award given to the 2021 vintage of this very special Pinot. This is the follow up 2022 vintage and…wow!

Doctor’s Flat is the wine project of ex-Carrick winemaker Steve Davies and his boutique, single 3-hectare vineyard in Bannockburn, Central Otago.

Named Doctor’s Flat after the “Deep Lead & Doctors Flat Mining Co” which held a claim on this plot of land during the mid-1800s gold rush. But the real gold is when you dig a deep deeper – literally.

Steve chose the site specifically for its deep, ancient glacial gravels and schist soil ground off the Cairnmuir Mountains by glacial ice around 480,000 years ago! “These older soils are further down the erosion path and have broken down to release more clay, lime, iron and their other constituent elements…We know soil texture drives wine texture and this vineyard produces pinot noir with density, fine tannin and great texture.”

Scoring 95/100 for the second vintage in a row by Master of Wine Stephen Wong. This is no ordinary Pinot – it’s a detailed, complex example that as The Real Review’s Wong says – “An elegant, restrained yet concentrated pinot noir with a long, fine core of raspberry, black cherry and plum elevated with measured complexity from perfumed whole bunch notes of pot pourri and just enough smoky wood to notice. Classically built with some muscular tannins and long, fruit-driven acidity, this has a velvet texture and linear shape which reluctantly unfurls on the finish. Young and yet to relax into itself, this needs another year to reveal its inherent silkiness and perfume, with a decade of positive development to follow

And what did the man himself think of it? “I hoped to make good wine from a better-than-average site. If my friends, neighbours, and colleagues thought it was good, that would be success enough for me.”