Bell Hill Pinot Noir Old Weka Pass Road 2016

Named for the road running past the vineyard itself, Old Weka Pass Road actually predates the Bell Hill label — it was the name used for the estate's very first releases, from 1999 to 2002, while Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen's young vines were still coming into full production. Today it serves as the estate's second wine: a smaller, select-barrel blend, typically drawn from the Slope and Quarry blocks, made with a substantial portion of whole-bunch fermentation and matured in a high proportion of new French oak, following the same meticulous, minimal-intervention approach as the flagship. Production is tiny — often little more than a thousand bottles a vintage — and it offers a genuine, if slightly more accessible, window into Bell Hill's singular limestone terroir.

Where the top-tier Bell Hill Pinot Noir leans savoury and slow to unfurl, Old Weka Pass Road shows the same DNA in a lighter, brighter, more immediately expressive register: red cherry, wild bramble and berry fruit, dried rose, spice, and sage, all lifted by that unmistakable chalky, mineral thread the estate is famous for. The palate is supple and elegant, driven by sweet red fruit and lively acidity, with fine, salivating tannins that give real shape without demanding years of patience. It's Bell Hill at its most approachable — beautifully expressive now, though it will happily reward a few years in the cellar too.