Just as I’m getting my head around subregional differences in Central Otago, Waipara develops the subregional thing.
Waipara sits an hour’s drive north of Christchurch, sheltered from easterly winds by the Teviotdale Hills. It’s a relatively young region and is still working out what works best and where. However, the region put on a tasting separating the three distinct types of site in the valley that are starting to show their influence.
Gravelly soils provide a lighter style of Pinot Noir with black and plum-like lifted fruits, a floral note, and peppery spice not dissimilar to that found in cooler climate Syrah. Try Crater Rim’s From the Ashes Pinot Noir or Kings Road Boundary Vineyard for a classic illustration.
Moving into the valley’s clay flats, the wines are more savoury and nutty. The tannins are quite firm in their youth and almost sandpaper-like in texture. Compared to the gravels, they are chunky wines. Theo Coles, winemaker at the Crater Rim, adds: “We have one site that’s like the hulk – it’s quite dense clay in the middle of the valley.” Try Waipara Springs’ Premo Pinot Noir or Muddy Water’s Slowhand.
According to Coles many blend both the gravel-sourced fruit with the clay-sourced fruit to give a better balanced wine – with spice and femininity from the gravels complementing the hulks from the clays.
The hillside sites are also interesting, giving a savoury and meaty, almost bloody quality to the wines. The wines in the line up were tightly structured and dense but this could have been due to low yields and stems included in the ferment – so these qualities may say as much about the producer as the site.
However, there’s certainly a case for looking at individual sites and, with increasing knowledge of specific site characteristics, this can only lead to better blends in the future.
