Villa Maria Reserve Marlborough Pinot Noir 2020

Villa Maria Reserve Marlborough Pinot Noir 2020French oak Summer berries Dark chocolate Velvety tannins "This is gorgeously ripe and impressively complex on the nose showing ripe cherry, warm mushroom, toasted spice, hazelnut and game nuances, leading to a silky smooth palate that's succulent and wonderfully flavoursome. It's plush and velvety with layers of delicious flavours. At its best: now to 2030" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit "A good example of Marlborough pinot noir, with appealing fruit sweetness

• French oak
• Summer berries
• Dark chocolate
• Velvety tannins

"This is gorgeously ripe and impressively complex on the nose showing ripe cherry, warm mushroom, toasted spice, hazelnut and game nuances, leading to a silky-smooth palate that's succulent and wonderfully flavoursome. It's plush and velvety with layers of delicious flavours. At its best: now to 2030" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit

"A good example of Marlborough pinot noir, with appealing fruit sweetness and a silken texture. A supple wine with bright cherry, berry, plum, coffee, red rose and spicy oak flavours. Accessible now but no rush" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review

"Complex and detailed bouquet with scents of ripe red berry fruit and kitchen cupboard spices, sweet toasty French oak and suggestions of dark plum and black currant. Youthful, complex and enticing. On the palate - a core of red berry fruit flavours fill the palate first contrasted by acidity and an abundance of tannins. A chalky texture and salivating mouthfeel contrast flavours of berries and plum, clove and vanilla, some wood smoke and stony earth qualities. An excellent example, balanced and well made with best drinking from late 2022/early 2023 through 2029+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier

"Already lovely, but worth cellaring, the 2020 vintage (5*) was grown in the Southern Valleys (72 per cent) and Awatere Valley (28 per cent). Hand-harvested and matured for 14 months in French oak barriques (22 per cent new), it is deep ruby, with a fragrant bouquet, revealing excellent complexity. Mouthfilling, it is richly varietal, with concentrated cherry, plum, spice and nutty oak flavours, and a delicious, silky texture. Best drinking 2023+" Michael Cooper

"Bearing slightly tweaked labels with a new set of fonts (ditching the Times New Roman look), the 2020 Pinot Noir Reserve also seems a little more relaxed in its expression. It offers roundness and mellow character. Slightly paler in color and gentler in its resolved tannins compared with the 2019 Reserve, this young example feels like it hasn't been messed with. Pure and fresh, it reveals a touch of reduction on the red-fruited nose, but it does feel like it can be approached now as well as cellaring well in the medium term" Rebecca Gibb, Master of Wine

"Youthful, primary, reductive nose with struck match, pork sausage and green peppercorn characters leading to more conventional cherry stone, rhubarb and toasty oak aromas. Medium bodied, with plush fruit, a positive tannin backbone, youthful, sappy acidity and charry oak flavours on the finish. A big, modern, typically NZ style" NZ Wine Rater

"This has aromas of bark, bramble, ripe cherries, cloves, thyme and ash. Medium-bodied, with fine tannins and bright acidity. Excellent precision with some toasty spice complexity to the berry fruit. Sustainable. Drink now or hold" James Suckling, Jamessuckling.com

The Marlborough Reserve Pinot Noir 2020 showcases bright floral aromas as well as fresh cherries. On the palate is an inviting mixture of dark chocolate and juicy summer berries with hints of freshly crushed thyme. This complex wine shows both purity and richness with soft velvety tannins and toasty oak influence which completes the wine.

A near-perfect growing season led up to 2020 harvest with fruit in pristine condition. The summer was dry with high sunshine hours during the day and the cooler nights that are typical for Marlborough. Yields were at their optimum level and the stable autumn weather allowed us to extend the hangtime of the fruit on the vines to achieve physiological ripeness.

In 2020, Pinot Noir fruit was sourced from 2 key vineyard sites with deep clay based soils in the Southern valleys sub-region within the Wairau valley contributing 72% of the blend. The remaining 28% came from the cooler Awatere Valley, both with free draining windblown silt loess soils on opposite sides of the Awatere River.