Akitu Pinot Noir Noir Blanc 2023

Accolades:
5 stars – Yvonne Lorkin, Canvas Magazine
93/100 – Jamie Goode, Wine Anorak
93/100 – Cameron Douglas MS

“This wine exists only because owner Andrew Donaldson says he was sick of going to wine shows and spending hours looking at the ceiling because he didn’t have a white. Thank heavens for boredom! Crafted from pinot noir with precious-little skin contact, this pale apricot-hued beauty bursts with apple, elderflower, white peach and bracing acidity. Plus it offers nuclear amounts of nashi niceness on the nose and palate and finishes with richly-textured minerality.” – Yvonne Lorkin, Canvas Magazine

“Delicate yet sophisticated bouquet with aromas of fresh white flowers and crushed rock minerality. Scents of lemon and apple, rose and schist. Equally enticing on the palate with youth, taut, crisp and mineral flavoured wine. Dry with delicate flavours of light red berries and flower, some fine tannins and salty salivating finish. Balanced and well made. best drinking from 2022 through 2025+.” – Cameron Douglas MS

“So, this is nothing if not quirky and rare, a still white wine from New Zealand made entirely from Pinot Noir… gosh, it’s utterly, completely beguiling. Akitu is one of Central Otago’s finest Pinot Noir producers, as anyone who’s tried their A1 and A2 expressions will know.” – Jonathan Ray, Spectator Life

Tasting Note: Brassy, rose-gold with a faint green hue and a platinum fleck, mica-like shimmer catches the eye. Lots happening on the nose: dusty river rock minerality, rose petals, Turkish delight, slight wild herbs, and a hint of sourdough mother but more brioche than that. There is a risqué bouquet of rouge compact and red-hot lipstick entwined with ripe golden queen peaches and musk sticks. It’s evocative and multi-dimensional, so many layers evolving and changing as it readies itself in the glass. The intensity on the palate impresses and it moves you in another direction: dry and savoury but full of textural depth. The interplay between acid and phenolics reminds you of that attribute in fine Nebbiolo, that leads to complex florals, particularly roses but some cherry blossom adding sedimentary depth. You cannot escape the musk, with a hint of cinnamon apricot kernel. The finish is long and dry with a distinctive crunch on the exit. It’s edgy yet resolved, exciting yet calm, almost like the grip of a sea anemone on your finger. Food: It is simply delicious on its own. However, a winner when paired with a slab of Stewart Island Salmon, smoked on toast with a dab of caviar – perhaps kedgeree for the second course.

Winemaking Notes: 100% Block A 777. Production – 2,425 litres – 270 x 12b cases equivalent. Harvested 7th April 2021, bottled 20th August 2021

Alcohol: 14.2%

Variety: Pinot Noir Blanc

Region: Wanaka, Central Otago, New Zealand

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