Ata Rangi across the decade
For a village with less than 2,000 people (statistics from Stats NZ), Martinborough is impressively well catered for with wine tasting groups and they run the gamut of cool, calm and casual to formal, organised and structured.
One of the best is run by John Penney, who has put his love for wine where his mouth is and turned his driveway into a temperature and humidity controlled wine cellar, in which he keeps impeccably well cellared wines, such as Ata Rangi Pinot Noirs stretching back to 1991. In October, he invited the tasting group he runs to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon tasting through aged Ata Rangi Pinots – with lunch and with Ata Rangi winemaker Helen Masters as co-host. I attended and the disclaimer is that we all paid our way to cover the cost of these wines, though not, it has to be said, the efforts that John Penney puts into his outstanding wine storage.
It was an excellent tasting. The wine industry in this village is less than 50 years old, so to taste a line-up of wines stretching back 34 years was an eye opener, especially because these wines which showed a progression from savoury, tertiary flavours captured in a framework of bold and balanced acidity to youthful, structured Pinot Noirs.
“These are seriously important wines in terms of the history of the Wairarapa wine region because of how good these early wines were – and are,” said Helen Masters,.
In terms of progression in winemaking, this line up demonstrated the importance that a higher proportion of whole bunch fermentation has become to Ata Rangi Pinot Noir. It was typical to use 10% whole bunch, prior to Helen’s arrival, with few deviations, but the big turning point was in 2012 – a challenging cool vintage in which she added a higher percentage of whole bunches to enhance the structure of the wine. Her approach today is to use about 40% of whole bunch fermentation in her wines – which means that 40% of the wine is fermented entirely with whole bunch fermentation.
Ata Rangi now draws on 45 year old vines to incorporate into its Pinot Noir production and this line up showed that the wines benefit as a result.
KEY FACTS
The first release of Ata Rangi Pinot Noir was 1986. Ata Rangi moved to screw cap for its production in 2002. None of the wines from 1991 onwards were fined or filtered.
TRY THIS
2016 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir
Retasted a week later at the winery, the 2016 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir is in a great drinking window; youthful in taste and structure with open, fruit forward aromas of red and dark cherries captured in a delicate structure with finely tuned acidity. The palate is harmonious, with excellent length. A standout in this line-up, reflecting the strength of the vintage with clarity and finesse.
