Kiwian Flagler: Pinophiles Part 2: Northburn Station

After Two Paddocks we were bussed farther north for lunch and tasting at Northburn Station, which originally earned fame 120 years ago as a gold mining hotspot. About 12 years ago, landowner Tom Pinckney was getting peppered with offers to source his sheep farm for grape growing. Instead of lease the land, he decided to take up the vintner mantle himself and has been churning out vintage grape juice since '01. Like almost all other producers in the region, Northburn makes mostly Pinot Noir (75% of the grapes), but also does a Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Sauv Blanc. Definitely our most thoughtful hosts, Northburn paired their 5 varietals with some dynamite finger food and a cheese/salmon/bread/pesto/shrimp smorgasbord.

The above handout gives a thorough recap of the wines, I won't go into any more detail except on the Rose, which was excellent.

I'll usually leave pink wines for the birds, but the Northburn Station Rose was legit. It retails for $23NZ, sadly you can't buy it in the states for the usual reasons...however I plan on bringing a few bottles back home. To make the Rose, Northburn "let's it soak" in the pinot skins for 20 hours to get the pink tint. The creative part of Northburn's pinot comes at the end of fermentation/aging when they dump in some finished red Pinot to bolden it. To top it all off, they paired this flight with a delicious lamb meatbbbbball. Lastly of note, one of the first things out of Cael's mouth when we walked into Northburn's restaurant/cellar door was "You could have a wedding here." Rest assured Heather, he may be far away but he's still focused the important stuff.

See for yourself: