Central Otago tasting...

A couple of weeks ago I attended a Central Otago tasting in Sydney...It's one of those regions I've been wanting to visit but having them come to me was even better.

The big players weren't there but there was still a really good showing....

General impressions: Central Otago, basically across the board, makes great pinot noir. The only complaint I had was that many of them have developed the same style and so many of them, while good, were just too similar. I guess you can look at that as a good thing as well...

One thing I like about most of the wines is they have good acidity and bright fruit. They also have good complexity and length. Tasty fine tannins. They basically crap all over Australian Pinots which I consider to be on the very heavy side and still having a few oddities in flavor. There are a couple of exceptions like Bass Phillip...or something like Yarra Yering Pinot which is a Pinot made to be that over the top fruit bomb, super vanilla oak red but still tastes good...Victoria has some decent pinot, Tassie has some decent Pinot...but if you're looking for that medium bodied, good acidity pinot, Central Otago is just better....

Notable wineries: Akarua, Aurora, Ceres, Domain Road, Quartz Reef, Rockburn, Surveyor Thomson, Tarras and Wooing Tree.

Wooing Tree had some really good Pinot but made in that very typical Central Otago style. They also had one of the few Rose that I actually enjoyed. You could see that their quality was top notch. they also had a white Pinot Noir....Across the board their stuff was very good. One of the best.

Surveyor Thomson was probably the most unique stylewise. To me, Central Otago is like a New World Burg in mouthfeel and acidity. You can tell it's not a Burg because there isn't enough earth, poop and greeniness. Surveyor Thomson is a New World wine that is made to be like an Old World. A bit more earthiness, maybe a bit less acid than the normal Central Otago, more noticeable oak (but definitely not overoaked), really nice complexity, a bit more tannins than most of the other Central Otago Pinots...Less bright fruit...I don't know if everyone would like this but I thought it was quite interesting and probably one of my favorites of the night. They had the Estate Vineyard and the Explorer. The normal Surveyor Thomson was better by a bit...

Ceres had REALLY bright acidity...As did Aurora...and oddly enough, that stuck out to me. I think it toned the fruit down which wasn't a bad thing...I had both of these near the end of the tasting though so these are ones I wouldn't mind trying again.