Wine of the Week: Mud House Pinot Noir

Wine: Mud House Pinot Noir

Grape: Pinot noir

Region: Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand

Vintage: 2013

Price: $8.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor

In the glass: Mud House Pinot Noir is a semitranslucent bright garnet-red color with a clean crimson-red core going out into a light garnet and slightly tinged rim definition with medium-high viscosity.

On the nose: The wine exudes well-ripened strawberry and other red berry fruit with crushed red currants, underlying mint leaf, stewed red plums, quince paste, geranium, musk, slight oak references, licorice root and red fruit-driven minerals.

On the palate: Mud House Pinot Noir is quite forward with well-delineated red fruit components, red cherries, strawberry compote, phenolics compounds, red currants, pomegranate and distinct minerality. The midpalate has a solid balance between the acidity and the tannins and with an unmistakable cranberry juice characteristic that carries through to the well-rounded and lengthy finish.

Odds and ends: While it may be hard to imagine, New Zealand is producing some outstanding examples of this noble Burgundian grape variety. Central Otago is about as far south as Burgundy, France, is north, so what we have is a mirror-image of that legendary French wine region in the Southern Hemisphere. While the soil types in Central Otago may differ somewhat from the ones in the better appellations of the Cote D’Or in Burgundy, the wines made there are remarkably similar in style and true to the character of pinot noir, the way it is supposed to be. This is a style quite contrary to most pinots made in California, where they often tend to mimic syrah wines with way too much alcohol and extraction. Pinot needs to be delicate and elegant and quite light in style, just the way it is made by Mud House. Reminiscent of a red Burgundy wine from the appellation of Volnay, the New Zealand wine is a superb value, and I could probably insert it into a Burgundian blind tasting and have it fool about 90 percent of the participants. It is a delicious and utterly drinkable wine that would be perfect with a cedar-plank grilled salmon fillet with a side of tiny boiled potatoes. Drink it now through 2018.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.