Felton Road is best known for its stonking Pinot Noir. You’d be hard pushed to find a better producer of the variety in New Zealand.
I popped in unannounced to see winemaker Blair Walter with three friends last weekend and we got a warm welcome (Stonyridge, take note).
Felton makes a number of single vineyard Pinot Noirs. There’s also a straight Pinot Noir and the 2009 is about to be released with an interesting addition to the label: Bannockburn.
My first thought was, don’t make things even more complicated than they are. Most wine drinkers couldn’t give a monkeys about New World regionality, and sub-regionality is a lot further down the line. Who the hell knows where Bannockburn is? It’s a sad reality but the show America’s Next Top Model was filmed in New Zealand recently, and one contestant though New Zealand was “above Canadaâ€! Ouch. But this isn’t any old winery. Felton does have a loyal band of followers and Walter’s justification for the change has legs.
“An ongoing irritation for us has been the reference to our ‘regular’, ‘standard, ‘basic’, ‘entry level’, and all the other ghastly sounding names that have been used to describe it over the year,†he says. “So, we’ve decided to name it. 2009 Felton Road Pinot Noir Bannockburnâ€.
Don’t worry folks, the wine hasn’t changed.
Felton has three vineyards: Elms, Calvert and Cornish Point, and the ‘Bannockburn’ is a blend of the three. If they were in Burgundy, this would be the village level wine; the Calvert and Cornish Point wines the premier cru, and the Block 3 and Block 5 grand cru.
“It seemed to be such a natural decision and we wondered why it had taken us so long to figure this out. Even James Halliday’s review last week referred to it as ‘the basic.’†adds Walter. Shame on you, James!
