Wine Reviews

Mixes power and elegance, offering wild blackberry, blueberry and cherry flavors that are fresh and precise, with notes of forest floor, crushed thyme and creamy oolong tea, plus fine-grained tannins.

The 2023 Aroha Pinot Noir is so elegant and fine. Tasted alongside the Te Muna Road Pinot Noir from the 2024 vintage (both wines sourced from the same vineyard), this appears ethereal and delicate, with dried rose petals and caper brine. 2023 might have brought challenges due to the water and the cold temperatures, however none of the struggles are evident in this glass. What a gorgeous wine. It is saline and fresh, detailed and lingering, highly recommended.

This vintage of Aroha shows the cool, wet season via green peppercorn, minty chocolate and dried herbal notes that weave between the currant and blueberry fruit. It’s quite tight—even austere—on the palate at the moment, lacking some plushness to make it ready-to-drink now. But it’s not without elegance and finesse, it perhaps just needs time to unwind.

Perfumed and focused aromas of wild strawberries, potpourri, dark cherries and citrus peel. The medium-bodied palate has finely integrated tannins and balanced acidity, giving flavors of red apples, graphite, hibiscus and pureed raspberries. Refined and pure with a savory edge.

A subtle, layered wine with wild strawberry, blackberries and Black Doris plums, clove and earth, and a hint of orange peel. The palate is plush, ripe-fruited and textural with firm, fine chalky tannins and succulent acidity.