Date tasted: August, 2011
Where: Museum Hotel, Welly
Notes: We are back in NZ (as we passed through immigration this morning, the agent noted that we had ticked the "permanently" response for the intended length of stay, looked up very briefly, then said "cool" as she stamped our passports). As we await the keys to our flat tomorrow, we wandered over to the market for a sunset snack and picked this inexpensive young Marlborough pinot from Allan Scott. One of the great advantages of the highly competitive makers of the "big 4" NZ varietals (pinots, cab blends, chardonnay, savs) is that you can find so many reliably good wines quite cheaply. This little pinot, for about $10 US, will never knock Latour out of your cellar, but it's not intended to. Instead, it ably does the three-stage "dance" of a good young pinot: (1) opening with ruby color and fruity nose, totally smooth right out of the bottle (2) tightening briefly with a bit of acid and astringeny then (3) settling down into ripened fruit and mild tannins.
