THE VERDICT
While ‘Pinot Noir’ on the wine label is enough of a lure for most wine lovers, what unique selling point do the additional words ‘single vineyard’ provide?
The consensus among our judges was that a single vineyard is the New World’s version of a ‘climat’ in Burgundy – a specific parcel of vines – and that labelling a bottle with a single-vineyard designation implied that it was of higher quality than a producer’s ‘basic’ Pinot Noir.
‘It indicates this is a producer’s best-quality fruit,’ explained James Doidge. ‘This is the wine they will spend the most time and energy on because it will be the reference point for the estate’s ultimate quality.’
Dirceu Vianna Junior MW felt the term helped the ‘real wine lover’ who wanted to know the story behind the wine. ‘A less-involved consumer will probably be happy with a bottle that just says “Pinot Noir” regardless of the country or region it comes from, let alone the vineyard, so long as it satisfies on a varietal level.’
Doidge agreed. ‘I do wonder about the point of indicating single vineyards outside the classic regions. It’s useful in Burgundy when you can compare this guy’s Nuits-St-Georges to lots of other Nuits-St-Georges. But I doubt most of these New World vineyards are sufficiently well known to consumers that it makes a difference – apart from the increased price. So the term becomes slightly artificial.’
A more defined sense of place was what Roger Jones wanted a single-vineyard Pinot Noir to offer. ‘The generic wine should say “This is Pinot Noir”, the single-vineyard should say “This is Pinot Noir from here”.’
New Zealand and Chile comprised more than half the wines submitted, so this tasting was not a balanced representation of single-vineyard Pinot Noir globally, but nevertheless the judges felt all 100 wines displayed good varietal character and the best were also expressive of their origins.
‘I was surprised to see so many Chilean wines,’ said Jones, ‘but I was blown away – brilliant! There’s now great diversification in Chile where you can say that a Pinot from this region is different to that region.’
‘Chile was very consistent,’ noted Vianna. ‘I was very excited by that, particularly Leyda. And you could taste the vintage variations.’
He and his fellow tasters also singled out South Africa’s Hemel-en-Aarde and
