Felton Road Pinot Noir MacMuir 2024

MacMuir is the newest single-vineyard addition to the Felton Road stable — purchased in 2010 and planted in 2012 just one kilometre east of the original Elms vineyard, and a mere 300 metres west of the celebrated Calvert site. The vineyard carries a genuinely rare advantage among New Zealand's young plantings: a notably higher vine density and a range of clones set on deep, heavy silt soils, giving it the kind of textural weight usually reserved for much older vines. The 2021 marked its first-ever release as a standalone single-vineyard wine, and it's quickly become one of the most talked-about additions to the range. True to Felton Road's whole philosophy — Demeter-certified biodynamic, built around a gravity-flow winery that lets grapes be gently destemmed without pumping — the wine typically includes around 25% whole clusters, fermented on native yeasts, and matured roughly thirteen months in French oak, about a quarter of it new.

The result has impressed critics from its very first vintage: James Suckling has scored it as high as 96 and 98 points across its short history, describing smoky, earthy notes of shiitake mushroom, lead pencil, dark cherry, and strawberry, with full body and layers of clove and black pepper.